Chicken Caesar Salad

As I've mentioned many times, my husband and I work together.  Every morning, well most, I pack a lunch for us. 

http://dinnerattheosbornes.blogspot.com/2010/03/lunch-at-osbornes.html

I'd like our lunches to be as interesting as our dinners and sometimes I'm successful. Today we are having Chicken Caesar Salad using the leftover grilled chicken from last night.  I've been on a Caesar Salad kick.  I've been experimenting with homemade Caesar dressing, trying many different variations off the internet. 

Here is what I like the best right now.  It is a modification of someone else's recipe, so I can't claim it.

Homemade Caesar Dressing
1 egg yolk
1 t. Dijon mustard
1 garlick clove, minced
1 T. anchovy paste

6 T. olive oil

6 T. canola oil

3 T. fresh lemon juice, not the bottled kind for this.

Whisk the ingredients until smooth.  This is about 3 salads worth of dressing for the two of us, so I keep it in a pint or half pint canning jar in the fridge for the next one.

1/2 head of Romain lettuce, cleaned and torn into bite size pieces.  The Romaine lettuce growing in raised bed 1 is being systematically eaten by a bunny every time any new leaves start to come up, so this Romaine comes from Diane's Produce.

1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese

1 cup. homemade croutons.   So much better than anything you buy and not hard to make.  For sandwiches and toast, I buy a sour dough bread made in loaf pans at a local bakery.  This is three slices. 

1 T of butter in the pan, melted.  Add the bread cubes.

Toss them around with the spoon to coat and continue stiring them as the toast.  Coarse sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  Make sure all turn over and get toasted on both sides until they are as toasty as you want.  They stay much softer on the inside than the kind you buy.  Of course, the shelf life is short.  Put them in a zip lock bag if you aren't using them immediately.

Hopefully they've left me a little room in the fridge at work.  At lunch time, I'll add the dressing and cheese to the lettuce and toss.  Add the croutons and toss again.  Slice the chicken into small pieces and lay it across the salad. 

Packed and ready to go.