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In spring and fall, lettuce is a crisp, fresh, easy to grow green that only needs regular watering to produce delicious salad. But as soon as the weather turns hot, it's a bitter mess. And in winter, it's a distant memory. It doesn't keep; it doesn't can; it doesn't dry; and it doesn't freeze. This means that a sudden hot spell, like the one currently battering the Cellar and the Pantry gardens, can turn a whole bed of lettuce into bitter herbs fit only for seed saving and composting. But there is a way to save these greens from the compost heap.
In the United States, lettuce is always eaten raw, or at most lightly seared on a grill. But it can be cooked just like any other green. For my endangered lettuce bed, I settled on a preparation that hopefully will store, and even freeze, for long-term storage: lettuce soup.  I started with half of a large white onion, which I sweated down with a little bit of bacon grease until it was soft. I then added two large heads of romaine lettuce from the garden, washed and cut into strips with kitchen shears, and cooked just a few minutes until it started to wilt.
Once the lettuce was bright green and slightly soft, I added two cups of chicken stock and brought to a boil. As soon as it boiled, I killed the heat and let it cool enough to work with; then it was into the blender (or use an immersion blender if you have one) until it was a fine pure.  The end result was a somewhat thick green soup, looking a bit like pea soup but even more full of fresh vegetable flavor. It was good still warm straight from the blender, with salt, pepper and fresh parsley from the same garden bed--don't forget the salt whatever you do. A touch of milk and a little cilantro mellowed it into a wonderful creamy concoction perfect for summer, and if you're eating right away it could be put back on the stove with a few fresh vegetables, ham, or fish for a great entree soup. And the leftovers went where lettuce has never gone before--into the freezer, to be thawed out in summertime. I wonder how it would taste as a chilled gazpacho substitute--maybe I'll find out when the first tomatoes ripen.
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