For the past weeks we’ve been receiving organic veggies and fruit from a local farm and we love it! Most interesting is getting strange veggies that we would not normally buy if left on our own, like chicory .. or leek and rhubarb. Also, the carrots taste yummy and the tomatoes are very good and taste like tomatoes. Something else that makes me happy is that they actually go bad in a few days if not eaten. This is double win for us: 1. it makes us eat them fresh and 2. it means no preservatives. I always find it freaky when vegetables look like just bought even after 2 or more weeks .. We also get recipes in the box, to match the contents – one salad in particular was a big success and we had it twice already! (with improvements by the head chef)

We also get loads of lettuce, which is best cooked as soup (my opinion, not shared by everybody). So, I made soup – a big pot of it. It was a bigger success in the office than it was at home, and because it was requested, here is the recipe I used:

Ingredients (for about 6 big portions):

• 2 medium lettuce heads (any kind is good, I usually like iceberg lettuce)
• 4 medium cloves of garlic (about half a head of garlic)
• 1l milk
• 1l water
• 3-4 tablespoons of oil (sunflower or vegetable)
• 1 tablespoon of plain white flour
• salt and pepper
• sour cream and yogurt for serving

Before you start:
Wash well the lettuce and cut the leaves in small pieces (aprox. 2cm x 2cm) I normally tear them by hand and not worry too much about being equal, or pretty.
Peel the garlic, and crush it.

Preparation:
Put the oil in a pot – enough to cover the base but not more. Add the crushed garlic and fry for a few minutes. Take care not to burn the garlic. Add the flour and mix continuously for a few more minutes so it doesn’t stick to the pot. Continue to stir and add milk bit by bit so it becomes a white sauce, without clumps. Add all the milk and bring it to boil. Mix often so it doesn’t stick. Add the water and chopped lettuce. Add salt and ground pepper to taste – the lettuce can be quite sweet sometimes, so make sure you add enough salt. Let it boil for about 30 minutes (or until all the lettuce is soft) on low heat, covered with a lid. Make sure to stir occasionally so that it doesn’t stick and burn. Warning: because it contains a lot of milk, it might swell when boiling, so keep an eye on it at all times.

When serving:
Mix 1 spoon of sour cream and 1 spoon of yogurt in a bowl before pouring the hot soup in it. You can use less or more of this, as you like. I eat it with lots of bread, but it is also good without.

Variations:
This is the way my grandmother makes this soup, and the way I like it, but there are several variations to it, like adding smoked meat, or lard, or sausages to it. I suppose they are added somewhere around adding flour to the garlic, but I’m not sure. The meat is usually chopped in small pieces. The soup will have to boil for longer so the meat is cooked through. There are people who add the yogurt directly to the pot of soup, but it might make the milk in the soup go sour, and I don’t like that. Some people also put lemon juice or vinegar in the bowl when eating the soup, to make it a bit more sour.

If you try it, let me know how it was 🙂 Enjoy!