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.

Onion and Garlic Rolls

We have a ton of onions and garlic (it's a figurative ton, but I think it might actually be a garlic ton and an onion ton if we define those as new units of measurement), so when we volunteered to provide the bread for our Thanksgiving dinner with the Makis, Ryan thought it would be a good idea to make onion and garlic bread. At least, that's what I thought he thought; he apparently thought it was my idea and I had a specific recipe in mind. After much internet searching, we based our rolls on this recipe. Of course, we didn't follow it exactly: we used 1 cup of wheat flour instead of all bread flour, chopped and pre-toasted (as in, toasted before putting in with the other ingredients) an entire (small--maybe 2 in. in diameter) onion, threw in some roasted garlic, used a lot more cheese (well, maybe twice as much), and of course only let the bread machine do the mixing and kneading and rolled the rolls ourselves. I think we baked them at 350 for 20-25 minutes. No one could taste the cheese, but the onions and garlic were detectable without being overwhelming (I was afraid they would be way too much).