Corn and Bean Salad
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup long grain rice
- 1 can black beans
- 1.5 cups frozen corn (and peas)
- 2 bell peppers
- 1 ripe avocado
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 lime, zest and juice
- 1/2 jalapeno or 2 bird's eye chiles, seeded and chopped
- 1/2 bunch of cilantro
- cumin powder
- coriander powder
- salt
- pepper
Background:
This is a good dinner for a weeknight. It's fast, tastes good, and is reasonably healthy. It's even better if you cook the beans yourself ahead of time. Also, you could substitute toasted soft corn tortillas for rice and do this as tacos. Finally, you can't really do this ahead of time because the rice will go all starchy.Preparation:
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Rinse rice and put it pot with salt and 1.5 cups water. Bring to boil, and then reduce to a bare simmer until cooked, approximately 20 minutes. While the rice is cooking, do the following:
- Rinse and chop bell peppers into 1/3 inch squares.
- Soak cilantro in a bowl of water, shake vigorously to remove any dirt, and let dry in a strainer. You may need to do this more than once, depending on how dirty the cilantro is.
- Pit and skin avocado and place in food processor or blender.
- Zest lime and place zest in food processor or blender.
- Finely dice the garlic and chiles. If you don't use gloves, wash hands carefully afterwards.
- Drain and rinse beans and place in serving bowl.
- Defrost the corn and or peas.
- Coarsely chop cilantro.
- Puree avocado with garlic, minced chiles, cumin, coriander powder, lime juice, salt and pepper to taste.
When the dressing is finished the rice will probably be done. Add the peppers, corn, cilantro and peas (if using) to the beans. Add the dressing and mix well. Then add the rice to this mixture (the rice is added at the end because it can become mush and break apart if it is stirred too much). Serve warm.