Eggless Caesar Salad

Ingredients
For the croutons
4 tablespoons olive oil (Garlic olive oil if you’ve got it!  Consider adding minced or pressed garlic if you don’t.)
3 cups Italian or French bread, cut in 34-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
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For the dressing_
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
12 teaspoon dry mustard
12 cup olive oil

3-4 heads romaine lettuce, cut or torn into bite-sized pieces
Parmesan cheese, shredded, grated or shaved

Instructions
1. Make the croutons: Preheat the oven to 350°F.  In a large bowl toss the bread cubes with olive oil, season with salt and pepper.   Spread them on a baking sheet, and bake them in the middle of the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are golden. The croutons may be made 1 day in advance and kept in an airtight container.

2. Make the dressing: Place all dressing ingredients in a container and blend with an immersion blender until thick and emulsified.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  (You could mince everything and whisk it while slowly adding the olive oil as well, but immersion blenders are so much fun.) 

3. In a large bowl, toss the romaine with the croutons and dressing until the salad is well combined.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and extra pepper to taste. 

Caesar Salad

Comments
I admit, my normal method of Caesar salad making involves a jar of salad dressing, a package of croutons, and a bag of lettuce.  However, with my HFCS intolerance, it becomes hard to find salad dressings and bread products that are HFCS free so I just haven’t made Caesar salad in quite a while.  Since I also like reducing the processed foods in our lives when I’m able to I to find a recipe on Epicurious.com instead of resorting to my normal methods. 

This is an eggless recipe which is nice for the people who avoid raw eggs.  I don’t avoid raw eggs, but I also don’t avoid recipes that sound tasty!  This was a really nice salad.  The amount of dressing was great for the 3 heads of romaine I had, each piece of lettuce was perfectly dressed.  The croutons were garlicky and crisp.  The dressing itself was extremely flavorful and peppery.  This is definitely a good salad to serve for company when you don’t have a stockpile of different salad dressings.  (This is the reason I used to always make Caesar salads for company, since I never had a good selection of salad dressings so it was better to serve a salad that I could dress myself!)

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