Wilted Lettuce Salad

Before I talk about my recipe, a little shout out to my baby brother (who is not such a baby at over 6 feet), because it's his 21st birthday today!!! He doesn't drink so don't expect him to go all crazy. He's most excited about the fact that he can now purchase a handgun. HA! Oh, and thank him, because he's in the national guard...in 2 weeks he goes to a 3 week training where he gets to shoot a freaking tank. How bad ass is that?! AMERICA!

Onto the goods...

After posting the pictures of my garden yesterday, I thought it would only be appropriate today to share a recipe that I absolutely LOVE, using a veggie that I grow. 

My favorite, favorite thing to grow in the garden is green leaf lettuce. There's this stuff called Wilted Lettuce Salad, and I got the recipe from Patrick's grandma. It's one of those you either LOVE, or hate. It's so easy to make, and has very few ingredients.Her recipe calls to add green onion and radishes, but I don't like either so I skip that part.

Wilted Lettuce Salad
1 head fresh green leaf garden lettuce
4-5 strips of bacon, diced
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Wash and shred the lettuce into large pieces and place in a large bowl. Like, lettuce pieces so big you don't think you can fit it into your mouth. Cook the bacon and add it to the lettuce. To the bacon grease, add the vinegar, sugar, lemon juice and black pepper. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour over the lettuce and toss. Serve immediately.

First of all, YES, most of the dressing is bacon grease, which can't be good for you. But oh well I guess. When you're eating it, the bacon grease gets cut down by the vinegar and lemon juice, so it's not as fatty feeling when you eat it on the lettuce.

If you have too much sauce the lettuce will get REALLY wilted and become mushy. So add the sauce slowly while tossing the lettuce until it's evenly coated. I like my dressing to be a little bit more tangy, so I add more vinegar than the recipe calls for. 

Fortunately for me and my FIL, Patrick and my MIL don't like this salad. So when we make a whole giant bowl of it, we don't have to share with anyone else and we always, always finish anything that's left. I guess we could do this in the winter time with leaf lettuce from the store, but it's just one of those things that's better with fresh garden lettuce that we get to look forward to every summer when the lettuce is ready to harvest. I usually end up making this at least once a week during summer.

Try it out! It's pretty bland for a salad, but come on. It has bacon in it! You can't go wrong!