Use Your Booty: Grilled Romaine

Here's another public service post to help you use up your bountiful basket of lettuce. Did you know you can grill lettuce? Romaine is your best bet for grilling - the floppy looseleaf lettuces just get soggy and well, floppier. Use those in lettuce soup or salads.

The method is easy. If your romaine head is really large (too much for you and your dining partners to consume in one sitting), peel off the outer leaves, reserving them for salads or sandwiches or some such thing. Then cut the head in half through the core. If the head is large, cut it into quarters.

Drizzle the cut sides of the lettuce with olive oil or a vinaigrette of your choice. Grill, cut side down, over medium-high heat. When the lettuce has grill marks and is gently charred on the edges, it's done. This will take about 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your grill, the amount of oil you use and the size of the lettuce heads.

Before serving, drizzle the lettuces with a little vinaigrette or just drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and squeeze lemon over the top.

This is a great side dish for grilled dishes. We enjoy it with grilled meat or seafood and a grain salad on the side.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.