Avocado Tomato Salad with Smoked Corn Vinaigrette

So it takes a lot to get me craving a salad. Don't get me wrong I love salad, but I don't often crave them! That is until we moved in Anchorage back in 2002 and ate at my now favorite restaurant Bear's Tooth Grill. They have amazing wonderful food, very fresh and filled with garlic! It took a few visits until I tried  this salad. Once I did try it, the cravings started. Since we lived close to this fantastic restaurant for 6 years  I had many of these salads. Once we moved away I tried to recreate it a few times and it was never right.
After a recent visit to Anchorage and enjoying another one of Bear's Tooth fantastic salads, I knew I needed to search to figure out how to enjoy this at home. From my searching the internet I found a recipe by Mark T. on Food.com. He had said that he had the smoked corn recipe in a restaurant and he lived in Anchorage....DING DING DING...could I have found this dressing recipe!!! I was beyond excited to try this out, but needed my hubby to smoke a batch of corn for me. When he so kindly had the corn smoked perfectly and it smelled heavenly, I dove right in to whip this salad up.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Maybe it will have you crazing a salad!!

TIP* place a small bowl upside down in a large bowl and place corn on small bowl to cut corn mess free
Dressing from Mark T. of Food.com

This is how much I got out of one batch.

8 ears of fresh corn ( I used a mix of yellow and white) (only puree 7 ears and save one to top off the salad)
4 garlic cloves chopped
2 shallots chopped
4 Tbs. white wine vinegar
1 cup corn oil ( I could not find corn oil so I used EVOO....and I don't think I used a full cup, all depends on how thin or thick you want the end product to be)

Smoke corn for 30 mins...(if you have to you can use a grill..but a smoker is best) (thanks hubs for smoking it for me).
Place smoked corn in 350* oven to finish cooking...about 10 mins or so, just watch it.
Puree all ingredients in a food processor or blender and slowly drizzle in oil then season with salt and LOTS of black pepper.

For Salad
1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped
3 very ripe avocados,chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
The extra ear or corn cut off the cob
Fresh cracked black pepper

To assemble
Place lettuce in a large pretty bowl. Toss well with a good amount of dressing (you will only use about a half of the batch or less). Then add avocados and toss well. Top salad with tomatoes, corn and black pepper..now DIG IN!!