I can't take any credit for this trick, since my lovely friend Kristin Pike taught it to me back when I stayed on her farm.
You can use it for regular lettuce, spinach, or other greens as well, not just those that come from the farmer's market. The thing about farmer's market veggies, is I feel so awful if they go to waste. They are priced a bit higher than those from the grocery store, so a waste is a greater financial loss, plus they are just so wonderful and delicious that I feel terrible for having been too busy to get around to cooking or using them.
My experience with farmer's market greens, such as spinach, kale, swiss chard, beet greens, and the like, is they actually last about twice as long as anything at the grocery store. Because we are a small family of three, we don't go through greens very quickly. A head of lettuce or box of spinach often spoils at least 25% or more before we even get through it. The local markets sell smaller quantities, and since the greens are fresher, they last longer. Most of my farmer's market greens will last two weeks or almost two weeks before beginning to spoil even a bit.
At a local market, you are buying greens either the day they were picked, or the day after they were picked. Greens lose most of their nutrients with a few days of picking, so the stuff from the grocery store, that has taken days to get washed/packaged/delivered/on the shelves, is never as fresh or nutrient-rich as something local and fresher. The grocery store greens that are in bags or boxes are even older than the ones loose or in heads, because the packaging adds additional delay to getting them from farm to shelf.
Not to mention that you usually eat greens directly, and often without cooking - making any pesticides that were sprayed on them directly ingested. Our local farmers market greens are no-spray (apparently "no-spray" is the code word, perhaps because "toxic pesticide" sounds not nearly as terrible as "spray?").
Anyway, the point here is not to wax poetic about toxins, but to discuss how you perk up and redeem wilted lettuce or greens in your fridge that you would like to save.
First, get rid of any really squishy brown stuff. We're not trying to save what has actually spoiled; just what is wilted and soft / soggy, rather than crisp and crunchy.
If it is farmers market, you want to wait to wash the greens until you are ready to eat them. Rinsing them in advance of eating makes them spoil more quickly. Makes you wonder what is the deal with all the water spraying over the veggies in the grocery store (ahem soapbox again). (We do not eat all organic in my house, and we still eat processed foods. I am slowly fixing things I feel are within reason to fix, and greens has been one I've changed, so this is all I know for now).
THE POINT IS: PUT YOUR LETTUCE OR GREENS IN A BOWL OR SINK-FULL OF ICE WATER AND LET THEM SOAK (10 minutes minimum; 30 minutes ideally).
There you go.
If that fails, old greens other that lettuce can be used in a yummy quiche, or sauteed with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, or added to fruit and yogurt smoothies. I have made fantastic quiche with beet greens, have had delicious sauteed swiss chard, and made a ton of smoothies with kale. Jax adores smoothies, so it is a fabulous way to get the superfood kale into him, since chewing up that stuff raw or cooked is hard for a toddler.
Longer soaking of the lettuce is better. So maybe 15-30 minutes soaking while you cook up the rest of the meal is fantastic. But even 5-10 minutes will help immensely. A longer soak will get them nicely crisp and crunchy. A short soak will un-wilt them, but won't restore as much crunch.
In my photos, I had what made about three heaping servings of salad, filled up with enough water to cover, and a handful of ice thrown in. No particular method to the madness, just some water and some ice.
I swirled it around periodically to be sure any dirt was rinsed off.
Jax helped me tear it into pieces, and he operated the spinner to get all the water off (best invention ever for salad lovers, worth every penny (about $10), and worth the cabinet-space hogging). And there you go, lovely salad.
Jax loves that lettuce spinner, and happily spins our salad dry several times a week.
He's getting where he can really help me with something I need extra hands for - like holding open the refrigerator door while I put in a heavy pot with two hands, or holding a swinging-cabinet-door open while I reach into the back of the cabinet for something (where otherwise the door would have swung down on the back of my head).
He loves it when I say, "Thank you Jax! You are such a big helper to Mommy!"
I incorporate him into many, many of my household tasks. So far the only one I really have to keep him out of is folding laundry. He loves to put clothes in the basket (helpful for carrying the dirty stuff over to the laundry room), or dump clothes out of the basket (helpful in several stages of laundry but not the folding part). He helps me transport and sort the laundry, put soap in, move clothes from washer to dryer, or dryer to basket, and he even walks across the house with giant heaps of clothes in his arms as we carry dirty clothes from our bedroom to the laundry room. But if he helps fold, he either wants to throw piles of folded things in the baskets (unfolding them) or dump baskets of folded laundry out (unfolding them).
So there you go. Happy crisp lettuce and a happy helpful toddler. It was a good day.
