CSA Week 1 - June 6th - iceberg salad

On Thursday I came across this recipe in my Facebook news feed and shared it with Jonathan. On Friday Jonathan bought a charcoal smoker and I picked up some Greenacres pork shoulder. On Saturday we invited a handful of friends and family over for barbecue.

Determined to use the remaining bulk of my CSA share (iceberg and radishes) for the meal, I settled on Deb's iceberg stack salad from here. I had been hesitant to make this for just us, fearing it would be too much food and would go to waste. The recipe is basically this plus additional toppings mentioned below. Also, in her book's recipe, Deb arranges the iceberg in slices with dressing and toppings between each slice instead of in the classic wedge. The salad dressing is simple and delicious, similar to a Ranch dressing.

Unfortunately, when I took the first slice of iceberg the layers started to come apart. Perhaps these iceberg leaves aren't as tightly packed as some. I also noticed some brown spots that I needed to cut out. In the end I chopped up the lettuce and put the salad together in a traditional way, tossed with the dressing with the toppings on top.

I think it was still very pretty. On top I put blue cheese, minced celery and radishes, Greenacres bacon, and garlic scapes in place of the chives. No matter the configuration I highly recommend it.

In addition to pulled pork and iceberg salad we also had smoked Greenacres chicken sausage (Brats and Sweet Italian), smoked kielbasa (Gabis secret recipe), KFC copycat coleslaw, cornbread, and watermelon. I tried my hand at a North Carolina-style vinegar-based barbecue sauce and a ketchup-based barbecue sauce, too. Chris and Barbara brought a wonderful bean salad. We followed Sifton's rub recipe for the pork, but a different technique since we used a smoker.

After today's meal only dill and some of the radishes, parsley, and cilantro remain. We didn't finish the iceberg salad so Jonathan and I will have to focus on that tomorrow before another share shows up on Monday!