A Salad Even I Could Love

I have a love-hate thing going with salad. I love salad when someone else makes it; I hate it when I have to make it myself.
My father and my mother-in-law are salad making pros, in their own different ways. My father has been the family salad chef since I can remember. His salads almost always include lettuce (usually the bagged greens), tomato, avocado, some kind of canned bean (though this seems to have fallen out of favor recently), and recently some kind of fruit (a family favorite is persimmon). And always Good Seasons Italian from the packet, made with balsamic vinegar and good olive oil. We had this salad just about every night, and I think he still makes it on a regular basis. Why fool with a good thing? He says he and his wife go through a bag of greens in about two days.
My mother-in-law, a German woman living in France, makes beautiful salads. We almost always begin our meal with salad there. Sometimes it's a simple green salad with onions and herbs and a simple vinaigrette. Sometimes there are tomatoes and cucumbers and olives. Usually for her it's just a matter of seeing what's in the fridge and putting that in the salad. But it's always beautifully arranged on a platter, and because this is France, the produce is almost always flavorful and beautiful. I once ate at Thomas Keller's Bouchon in Las Vegas and ordered the green salad. It was beautifully prepared and presented and tasted just like my mother-in-law's green salad.
But me--meh. Somehow, after I've done all the chopping and mixing and cooking of the day's main dish, I don't want to be bothered with chopping and mixing a salad. Steaming broccoli or roasting asparagus is much easier, in my book. But every month, as part of my random menu planning, I include four (randomly selected, of course) salad recipes and swear to myself that I'm going to get it right. Last night, I got it right and everyone was happy.
It was a Successful Meal in general, last night. We had lamb chops marinated in rosemary, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and soy sauce and then grilled by Dr. D himself. Budget tip: at Dorignac's, where I go to buy lamb, you could get rib chops for $9.99 a pound, or you could get sirloin lamb chops for $3.99 a pound. Those sirloin babies were tender and flavorful, even though there was some bone-chewing to be done (fortunately, Dr. D enjoys this). OK, we also had mashed potatoes with some cooked kale thrown in because it was in the fridge (call it colcannon if you like, but it's delicious) and also some chives. And I made this salad, which I found in a back issue of Bon Appetit. It's got tomatoes and feta and olives--what's not to like? Bonus: no leftovers!

Romaine Salad with Feta Dressing
Adapted from the September 2001 issue of Bon Appetit
Serves 4 with no leftovers!

2 T. whole milk
1-1/2 T. red wine vinegar
1 T. ( I used half a small lemon) lemon juice
1 large garlic clove, cut in half--you'll use each half for different purposes
1/2 cup olive oil
3 oz. feta, crumbled
2 T. Parmesan
1/2 cup Kalamata or other olives you like, pitted
About 2/3 of a head of romaine, chopped in shreds or torn--however you like it
1 basket of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

Get out your food processor, blender, or mini-chopper (I used the latter). Put in it the milk, vinegar, lemon juice, and half the garlic clove. Blend/pulse this until the garlic is all chopped up. Then, while the machine is running, add 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Once that's mixed in, add the feta and Parmesan. Taste for salt and pepper--I found this needed little salt but lots of pepper. Consider that you're going to have a strong and salty tapenade on your salad as well as the dressing.
Pour the feta dressing into a bowl and rinse out your machine. Now put in your machine the olives, the other half of the garlic clove, and the rest of the olive oil, and process that until you have a nice paste or tapenade. I made mine kind of semi-chunky--you should go with the texture you like.
Now you're coming down the home stretch! Put your lettuce and tomatoes in your salad bowl and toss them with the feta dressing. Then drizzle it with the tapenade and be prepared for your family to say, "Ewww, what's that?" and then devour the whole thing.