Southwestern Black Bean & Corn Salad

This is for Day 3 of 30 Days of Creativity and the theme is corn, so I chose to make a corn salad.  The recipe is based on this recipe at "Shannon Makes Stuff"; however I adapted it to use the full cans of corn, bean and tomatoes.

Recipe:

• 1 14-15 oz can whole kernel corn (drained)
• 1 14-15 oz can  black beans (drained and rinsed)
• 1 14-15 oz can diced tomato
• 2 tablespoon jalapeno pepper, finely diced
• 1 cup onion, diced
• 4 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
• 4 tablespoons vinegar (original calls for white vinegar, I used balsamic vinegar)
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all items together and allow to set in the fridge to marinate for at least two hours.  Can be served as a side salad or as a salsa with chips.  It starts out with a clean fresh taste tomato and corn taste then there is a mild kick due to the jalapenos and chili powder.

TOMATO & ONION SALSA

This recipe was inspirted by this post by at CO+K by Chelesa M. http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/best_salsa_ever This was super-easy with using the food processor to chop everything up. I varied my receipe slightly and used the following and it is more of an tomato and onion salsa than just tomato based and it was very mild. 1 can Rotel Tomatoes with Jalepenos 1 can Tomato Sauce 1 fresh tomato 3 cloves garlic 1 1/2 med. sized yellow onions 2 Tsp. Mexican Seasoning 1 TBSP lime juice 4 dashes Seasoned salt 1 handful of Cilantro

MEXICAN CILANTRO AND LIME RICE

It was great as a side dish, but also great as a filler for a burrito!

The following receipe is from Closet Cooking and it is tweaked copycat/upgraded version of the lime rice in Chipotle's burritos.

I had to tweak it further as I used quick rice and have dried instead of fresh cilantro and the second time I made it did not have any fresh garlic so I had to use chopped garlic from a jar.

It was great as a side dish, but also great as a filler for a burrito!

http://closetcooking.blogspot.com/2009/03/cilantro-and-lime-rice.html

This recipe make about 4 side dish servings (note, in some of the pics are from the second time I made this and I tripled the recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1/2 large onion or 1 small onion
• 1 clove garlic (chopped) or 1 TBSP of chopped garlic from a jar
• 1 cup quick cook rice
• 2 cups water
• 1 handful fresh cilantro (chopped) or 1/4 cup dried cilantro
• 1 TBSP lime juice or juice and zest of 1 lime (zest is optional)
• 1 TBSP Kosher or Coarse salt (like the kind used on the rim of margarita glasses)

Heat the oil in a pan.

Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes, then the garlic and saute until fragrant, about a minute.

Add the rice and toast in the oil for a few minutes. Add the water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat. Cover the pan and allow to sit for 5 minutes.

Mix in the cilantro

Add in lime juice (if you use juice from a bottle, 3 capfuls is 1 TBSP) and zest.

Stir in the salt