Corn and Bean Salsa

Are you:

• tired of plain old salsa boring you a parties?
• looking for something quick and easy to impress your friends?
• wanting a large bowl of something fresh and tasty that you and your husband can eat large quantities of without feeling (too) guilty?

You are?  What a crazy random happenstance!

I first got this recipe from my Aunt Barbara and I've made it about a hundred times since then. Even my non-cooking friends (you know who you are) love making this salsa because it's so good that you want to just eat it with a spoon!  Not that I ever have . . . WHO TOLD?

I'm kind of cheating here because the only real line of instructions on this recipe is "put into a large bowl and mix" but I'm going to stretch this out with pictures and witty commentary.  Ok, MILDLY witty commentary.  Don't get your hopes up.

Here's what we're working with:
1can white beans
1 can black beans
1 tomato, diced
1/2 a purple onion, diced
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 lb bag frozen sweet white corn
1/2 bottle zesty Italian dressing

Start with the white beans and the black beans rinsed and drained.  Note:  White beans ARE NOT the same as white kidney beans.  Just look at the picture on the can.  If they look about the same size as the black beans and smaller than a kidney bean then you're set.

I just work my way through all the ingredients and add them each into a large bowl as I'm working.  The order doesn't really matter and you can adjust the quantities of each depending on your likes.

Next I chopped up a bunch of cilantro.  Like, one WHOLE bunch.  Get it?  Ha.  (Now I can check "mildly witty commentary" off my list.)  You can sprinkle it in delicately like I am in this photo.  Or you can dump in in all at once like I did after this photo.

Here is my purple onion all chopped (or was it diced?) and ready to go in.  This can sometimes overpower the other flavors so don't get too carried away with how much you add because the onion flavor only becomes more powerful over time.  Kind of like Darth Vader.

Here is our lovely tomato before it got hacked to bits.  If you're like me this means itty-bitty teensy-weensy little bits.  Even I can't ignore the positive influence of tomatoes in this dish, and, as long as they're chopped small enough, I don't have to pick around them either.

Don't the onion and the tomato make a cute couple?

If you're going to serve this in a couple hours, dump the bag of frozen corn in the bowl.  It will defrost as it sits.  But if you're like Miyagi and me and want it eat it all now-right-now-I-can't-wait-another-moment-to-put-this-all-in-my-face then you can let the corn sit in a bowl of warm water while getting the other ingredients together.  It only takes a few minutes.  You don't want it hot, just thawed.

This is my favorite dressing to use.  I'm sure there are other kinds out there but they wouldn't be as good and then you would glare at me through the internet for suggesting such a disappointing recipe.

Pour in about half the bottle.  Too much more will leave a big puddle at the bottom of your bowl and will result in more internet-glaring.  I just couldn't bear that.

This is perhaps the most important step: letting your husband snag a taste fresh out of the bowl.  It's just so good he won't be able to wait!  Even the chip is happy in this photo!

We decided to stop resisting and eat most of the bowl for lunch that day (and the rest for dinner . . . shhhhh) but this is also great on taco salad, burritos, fish and whatever else you can think of.

Not brownies though.  This is gross on brownies.