Simple Corn, Red Pepper, & Bean Salad

* This recipe was featured in Cooking Across America, the latest edition of their Country Comfort Cookbooks series! Click here for more information!

I've been obsessed with the idea of making fresh salads like this one below and this orzo salad. The one below was made of kidney beans, pinto beans, red pepper, fresh corn, jalapeno, red onion, salt, pepper, olive oil, & store-bought Italian dressing. I honestly just used whatever was in the pantry or in my refrigerator. So refreshing, healthy, and delicious! It's also a VERY flexible recipe. You can make this with cucumbers, edamame, tomatoes, bell peppers, any kind of beans, any kind of cheese (I prefer fresh mozarella or feta), etc.

Before mixing:

After mixing:

Simple corn, red pepper, & bean salad recipe:

1 can pinto beans (drained)
1 can kidney beans (drained)
1/4 of a red pepper (diced)
3 ears of fresh corn on the cob (cooked & cut off the cob)
2 tablespoons red onion
~1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2-3 teaspoons diced jalapeno
Italian dressing (to taste)
salt & pepper to taste
* Optional: red wine vinegar and/or balsamic vinegar

Wash everything.
Chop whatever you want to chop.
Mix everything together in a big bowl.
Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Simple!

A 50/50 Bar (Creamsicle) - Two Ways!

Way #1:

I loooove smoothies, milkshakes, icies (is that the plural form of "icy/icee?" icees?), shaved ice, snow cones, etc. I also love the orange & cream combination. This is just 100% orange juice + ice cream + ice blended together and topped with Breyer's Creamy Vanilla ice cream. So easy and wonderful. After I made this I broke the wine glass. :(

* Note: Jamba Juice sells the Orange Dream Machine, which is basically a 50/50 bar in smoothie form. SO WONDERFUL!

Way #2:

The orange ones are delicious, but I still am on the hunt for the original 50/50 bar...or at least some kind that's similar to the first 50/50 bar I had back in daycare. It had a clear wrapping with dark blue letters, and the orange shell was harder and icy rather than creamy like this one is. My dad said the first one he saw was in wax paper or something. Anyway, these are good but just aren't the same.

The raspberry one:

Shaved Ice w/ Honey (& Cinnamon) - Just for Fun

* Scroll to the bottom of this post if you want to skip the back story part of this*

"If you could meet anyone--dead or alive--who would it be?" I've never had an answer ready for this one, but now that I've had many years to think about it, one person at or near the top of my list of people to meet would be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've read all of her books as well as all of the books of Rose (her daughter) and Ma (her mom). I was so sad when I finished LIW's last book, The First Four Years. That was the first time I had read about childbirth (she talks about giving birth to Rose), and it kinda freaked me out. I think the phrase was this: "She was being bourne on a wave of pain." Lovely. Anyway! I swear this post is about food. I think about the food Laure Ingalls Wilder and her family ate because she described them fairly often. Salt pork, venison, canned peaches (a REAL TREAT back then), cheap barrel candies, etc. I will never forget reading from Farmer Boy about how Almanzo Wilder (who ended up being Laura's husband) ate food one time with such enjoyment that he could taste the food in all of the "corners" of his mouth. That really stood out to me because that's how you really taste delicious food...when it fills all of your mouth and you love it and only want more. Another thing that stood out was the fact that for a treat they used to put molasses in the snow and make molasses candies. I think it sounds better than it actually is, but I'd always wanted to try it. I'd even do it in the winter and eat real molasses with real snow (including all of the nasty pollution) just to say that I've tried it!

For now, I'll have to settle for shaved ice, which I don't mind at all because it's one of my favorite things to eat. Shaved ice with ice cream is by far my favorite, but any kind of shaved ice thing with fresh fruit, sometimes sweet beans, sometimes condensed milk (like in the Filipino treat, halo halo), etc. Here are some examples:

Plain shaved ice:
Just plain from Kogetsu-Do in Fresno
Just plain from obon festival in Parlier (near Fresno)

Shaved ice with ice cream, fruit, & other toppings:Just plain OR shaved ice with ice cream from Kogetsu-Do in Fresno (finely shaved ice - awesome!)
From Ten Ren's Tea Time in Riverside
Shaved ice with ice cream from Japantown in San Francisco - Argh! I gotta find this picture!
Green tea snow cone with azuki beans - in Japan

Creamy Slushies: Cream Slush from Sonic in Fresno, Clovis & other locations in the US - I usually request that they separate the slush part from the ice cream part so it looks kinda like this homemade 50/50 bar slush drink.

Granitas (kinda like shaved ice):
Coffee granita
Fresh strawberry granita

K...so about this shaved ice. After watching Alton Brown go on and on about how wonderful the Bragg Family Farm's Sugar on Snow dish (shaved ice, molasses, unsweetened donut, & pickle...so weird but amazing according to Alton Brown, who is one of the food gods) is on The Food Network's The Best Thing I Ever Ate, I had a craving for shaved ice and also that combo of molasses and snow/shaved ice. Since I don't have snow anywhere near me in this 90-100-degee Fresno weather (and because it's kinda filthy lol), I just blended some ice and put honey on top. I knew this wouldn't be amazing, but it tastes good, and I like the texture of the honey after it's started to get really cold and slightly hard. The cinnamon makes it more interesting too.  Try it with finely shaved ice if you can.

Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato, & Basil Orzo Salad

all mixed up:

My parents, bro, and I love orzo, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, so why not throw something like this together? I rarely make things without recipes because I'm no recipe-making expert, but I was confident that this would be easy to make because I've made something similar with a recipe before several times. Plus, it's true that after making dishes after dishes, you start to realize that you can make some things without recipes based on just knowing what ingredients go well together. Kinda like how you can put chocolate and other toppings on ice cream without an actual recipe. 

Anyway, here are the ingredients (you just adjust them as you see fit):
* Cherry or grape tomatoes
* fresh mozzarella balls
* Chopped up fresh basil
* olive oil
* red wine vinegar
* balsamic vinegar (couldn't decide which vinegar to use, so I put in a little of both)
* salt
* pepper
* Turkey bacon (added at the end - optional)

* NOTE: Serve cold! Refrigerate all ingredients mixed well together for at least an hour or two.

I want to try this with more or different ingredients!