Black Bean and Corn Salad

Apparently, we post in August these days. Oops. Anyway, we have now made a black bean and corn salad twice, and we like it a lot. I made it up based on a similar salad I had when we were at MathFest this year (except that one had cilantro in it, and I despise cilantro. If you like cilantro, you should probably add it to your salad. Unless you're going to feed your salad to me or anyone else who can't stand cilantro. Then have a heart, and don't send us home with a metallic soapy taste in our mouths). So, anyway, here's somewhat of a recipe (when I say I made this up, I'm serious, so of course I didn't measure):

some cans of black beans, rinsed (number depends on size of group you're serving)
some corn (the better the corn, the better the salad), cooked/unfrozen
some onions, chopped (browned if you're like me and have trouble with raw onions)
some green and/or red peppers, chopped (or another color; these can be browned with
the onions if you so desire)
some tomato, chopped
juice of a lemon or lime (or more than one, depending on how much of the previous
ingredients you're using)
some olive oil (as in, a few tablespoons)
some vinegar (I've been using white--probably 1/8-1/4 cup)
some cumin
some garlic powder or pressed garlic if you want it stronger
some cayenne pepper
some salt

Mix all the dressing-type ingredients together and pour on top of the other ingredients. Mix well; refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

If you like spicy (we do, in case you weren't aware), I think some jalapeños or jalapeño juice would be a nice addition. Of course, I forgot that I think that this morning when we were making the salad. Green onions could work, too, as could jalapeño-pickled carrots.

Potluck

Potluck Sunday at our church is always a bit difficult for us--we don't want to take anything that needs to be baked because the ovens are always crowded and the potluck oven-use etiquette is entirely unclear, so we usually end up taking brownies or something in the crockpot. Yesterday (we have Potluck Sunday the first Sunday of every month, so this is a frequent issue) we had decided to ride our bikes to church, so the crockpot was clearly not a viable solution. I'm a fan of leaving the brownies in the pan in which they are baked, so they didn't seem to be the greatest solution either. Instead, we made a bean salad because we had all those ingredients and I was sick of having the green beans in our freezer. Ryan liked it, and one of our friends asked for the recipe, but I was not impressed (of course, Ryan picked the recipe with the warning that I would not like it--which I was pretty clear on myself). It was okay, it transported well, it was very easy to make, and it looked pretty (we used black beans instead of garbanzo beans because I used all the garbanzo beans in curry earlier in the week--but that's another post), so I wasn't too disappointed that I had no desire to eat it.

Beans and Rice

Last night we had a staple meal that we both love, black beans with rice. We usually warm the beans out of a can to save time. Rebekah chopped and added red and green peppers to the beans as well as some spices (cumin and chili powder) and green salsa. The rice and beans get mixed together when we serve as well as the optional/to taste ingreedients:

• Cheese (cheedar and/or pepper jack)


• More salsa (usually chipolte)


• Sour cream


• Salt

This morning I am making waffles for Rebekah. I have to go wake her up now (I think I will let mobius do most of the work).