Caesar Salad, Pg. 211

The "Ice Cream" section of Charleston Receipts is longer than the "Salad" chapter. Shocker.

Undaunted, I charged forth this evening in my quest to initiate a post-Thanksgiving health kick with this cookbook in hand. (Definitely too much road trip fast food, too many leftovers, and way too much wine over the holidays.)

I chose Mrs. John McGowan's receipt for Caesar Salad, the "Charleston Adaptation." It was definitely delicious. Healthy, not so much.

"Drain on brown paper, until crisp."

There are fried croutons (yum.) Anchovies packed in olive oil (yum.) Parmesan Cheese (double yum.) A couple of raw eggs (trust me, it works.) Oh yeah, and lettuce, too.

The receipt called for tarragon vinegar and I found some with actual tarragon in it!

I served the salad with a rotisserie chicken (as Ina would say, "How easy is that?") and my husband loved it. He doesn't even like anchovies, but this salad doesn't have a fishy taste at all. I used my food processor to combine the lemon juice, anchovies, egg, tarragon vinegar and oil to ensure that the dressing was as smooth as possible. Next time, I may reserve a few of the anchovies, rough chop them and throw in the larger pieces into the salad. I do love anchovies.

Finished product

Bottom line - I don't want to attempt to calculate this receipt's calorie count (let alone the sodium), but it did offer up a vegetable in a raw, crunchy, non-casserole form. Anything is an improvement over the Thanksgiving smorgasbord.

On a final note, we have 13 followers - at least a third of whom are family members, but after returning to Spartanburg this past week for the holidays, I can't tell you how many of our faithful readers approached me complimenting us on this blog! Thank you all for reading!

-Lauren