It's not a classic Caesar, but it's a damn good one. Learned it from Mom, then modified it a bit through the years as I discovered I liked more garlic, more tartness, and more garlic.

The Mostly Caesar Salad

You'll Need:

One head of Romaine lettuce, cleaned, torn into bite-size chunks, and dried. (Or just pick up a bag, but I prefer to do the work myself.)
6 cloves of garlic.
½ cup red wine vinegar.
1-½ cups extra virgin olive oil.
A tube of anchovy paste. (A sin, I know, but I hate chopping up those hairy little fishes.)
10 or 12 drops of Worcestershire sauce.
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard.
The juice of one-half lemon, maybe more.
A teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.
½ cup grated Parmeggiano-Reggiano. (A lesser Parm will do, but nothing pre-grated in a can or a jar.)
½ of a baguette, chopped into cubes and left out to dry.

First, make the croutons.

If the bread cubes aren't already stale, put the cubes on a cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove and turn the heat up to 375. Put 1 cup of the olive oil in a bowl, and crush four cloves of garlic into it. Then take the bread cubes and dump them into the bowl. If they don't all fit, then dunk them in groups. When they're good and soaked, put them back on the cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 7 or 8 minutes. Don't overcook them! The idea is to leave them slightly uncooked in the middle, so you get an explosion of garlicky olive oil every time you bite into one. Yum.

Now the dressing.

Go out and get yourself one of those tiny wooden bowls. They sell them at most grocery stores, and they only cost a couple of bucks. Hell, I don't even know if they're real wood. But they make a lot less clacky noise when you whisk the dressing together.

First, squeeze out about a third of the anchovy paste into the bowl. Then add in the remaining ½ cup of olive oil, and crush the last two cloves of garlic in there. In the unlikely event that you have some olive oil left over from the croutons, just use ½ cup of that, instead. With a small fork, whisk it all together until it looks pretty damn gross. (Parents of infants will understand.) Now add the red wine and balsamic vinegars, the mustard, the Worcestershire, and the lemon juice. Whisk it until it's emulsified, then quickly toss in onto the Romaine, along with the parmesan cheese.

Dish out onto chilled plates, and sprinkle the croutons on top.

Serves four, or two as a light entrée.

Oh, and don't bother with wine – all the vinegar will ruin your taste buds for it until you get into the main course.