An Oldie But A Goody

This is an old classic favorite in the Moore household. The recipe came from Abilene’s Junior League cookbook and it’s seen us through many parties. The cookbook has lots of great recipes, but this is one of the best. I have posted pictures on the blog before, but I didn’t give the recipe. You can change it up to suit your tastes, but although I am a fan of changing up ingredients, this is pretty darn good as is.

Luckily, Jeremy is also a fan and he requests it often. Now is the time to make it- all these veggies are in season and it looks so pretty at a summer gathering. Enjoy!

Black Bean Salsa

2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (17-ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
2 large tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 large avocado, peeled and diced
½ purple onion, diced
3 to 4 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
chopped fresh cilantro leaves (optional)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl. Cover and chill overnight. Taste and add salt, pepper, or more lime juice as necessary. Serve with tortilla chips as an appetizer, or with grilled chicken breast as a meal.

Pick a Pepper!

We stopped by Billy and Rita's on Monday and they gave us more tomatoes and a few peppers! At this point, I had to make some salsa!

As I said earlier, I was a little reluctant to make the salsa since I didn’t want to ruin the delicious tomatoes. I looked up about 10 recipes on salsa and reviewed the ingredients and the process. And then . . . I did it my own way. My big decision was whether to do a “fresh” salsa and just chop all the ingredients or to do a “restaurant style” salsa and cook the salsa mixture. I decided to go with cooking it, since the fresh tomatoes have a ton of juice and I am hoping it will last a little bit longer. We’ll see.

I don’t have an exact recipe for this- I used 8 large fresh tomatoes, 1 yellow onion, 5-6 jalapeño peppers, juice of 1 lemon, 3 garlic cloves, handful of cilantro, teaspoon or so of cumin, tablespoon of chili powder, and salt. I peeled and cored the tomatoes and put them in a large sauce pan until they came to a boil. I put them in the blender until it was fairly smooth. Back into the pot and I added all the other ingredients (except cilantro). I let them mixture cook for about 30 minutes, until all the veggies were soft. Last, I topped it off with the cilantro.




I really thought this was going to be like several other things I have made (like biscuits) from scratch- good, but not worth the effort when the store has plenty of good options. But it was completely delicious and so worth it. I did taste it at one point during the cooking to see if it needed more ingredients- I added salt and more peppers. It’s going to be hard to eat “regular” store-bought salsa now! Although I will say, I think the tomatoes made it great!

E’s Notes:

• You could make this with canned tomatoes- most of the recipes online used canned tomatoes.
• Taste it several times during the process to see what it needs. The peppers will get hotter and more flavorful as all the ingredients meld together.
• I took the seeds out of the peppers- if you want it hotter, leave the seeds in!
• Add ingredients that you like or omit the ones you don’t like (ex. cilantro).

No man can . . . love his neighbor on an empty stomach.”

We hosted our HOA meeting at our house, so of course we had to provide a few snacks. We didn’t have quite the turn out we were hoping for, but Jeremy and I had more food for ourselves!

We had mini caprese bites, black bean salsa with tortilla chips, quesadillas with lime sour cream, and chicken salad in phyllo cups. I think it turned out pretty well! For dessert, I made chocolate filled vanilla cupcakes. These are best served warm. If you have leftovers, you can put them in the microwave for about 10 seconds, so the filling is melted and gooey!

Mini caprese bites from Southern Living

Chocolate Filled Cupcakes from Martha Stewart

Chicken salad: make your favorite and purchase phyllo cups from store!

Black Bean Salsa with tortilla chips

Lime sour cream: ¾ cup sour cream and zest of one line

Quesadillas: tortillas, monterrey jack cheese, and chopped green chiles