Black Bean Salsa

If I had to pick one food that I had to eat for the rest of my life, it would probably be chips and salsa. I love most kinds of salsa as well as most kind of tortilla chips. Well except baked. Sorry, but if you are gonna eat them you might as well just put in the caloric effort.

This black bean salsa is insanely easy to make and will rock your salsa eating world. My sister was over when I was making it and to be honest she was more than a little skeptical as I was making it. You think by now she would just trust my salsa wisdom. But sadly, she still lacks a little faith. Since she too is a lover of all things salsa and chips, she took a leap and took a giant scoop and popped it in her cute little doubting me mouth.

Well of course she loved it. DUH. She should have just known. After all there is bacon in this salsa. Yup I said it BACON. What isn't made better with some bacon? Ever had bacon in your salsa? No. Well here is your chance.

This black bean salsa only has four ingredients. FOUR. I feel like I have exuberantly "yelled" (aka the ALL CAPS) a lot in this post. I am pretty much still really excited about this salsa.

This salsa is pretty healthy with the black beans and all the veggies from the salsa and the jalapeno. There is a little bit of bacon in it, but let's face it bacon gets a health pass because it's deliciousness trumps all that healthy mumbo jumbo.

We paired our black bean salsa with toasted black bean tortilla chips, but I would wager that any kind of tortilla chip would be good with this salsa. So whip yourself up some. Open a bag of chips. Dig on in. And smile.

It is that good.

Black Bean Salsa

Ingredients:
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup salsa
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
5-6 pieces of bacon, cooked and chopped

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl.

Eat right away or refrigerate until ready to serve (up to a few hours).

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Canning Salsa

What? I am canning again...I know shocking.

I just can't seem to help myself. I have caught the canning bug and I just can't seem to stop.

Okay that is not true, there will be stopping soon. I may love the product of canning, but I have about run out of the energy to can.

Plus I am running out of jars.

Before my steam completely ran out we decided to can one more thing.

All thanks to some tomatoes.

See we had a plethora of tomatoes...I know fancy words, right. Yeah, I am all smart and stuff like that. Thanks to my junior year of high school rhetoric.

I am pretty sure plethora is the only vocab word I remember from that course. My poor teacher would be disappointed if he found out. So shhhh, don't tell him.

Anyway, back to my plethora of tomatoes.

With all these tomatoes, I decided it was time I learned to can salsa.

I used THIS recipe An Oregon Cottage.

Not too spicy. Not too mild. Perfect consistency.  The ingredients are easy to find.

The salsa comes together super easy. Even, say absolutely hypothetically, if you don't have a food processor and have to chop everything up with a tiny bullet baby food maker in like four batches. Hypothetically of course.

If you too have a plethora of tomatoes...

AND you like some chips and salsa...

Well, then make some salsa. Heck, you don't even have to can this if you don't want to. Just put a lid on it and store it in your fridge. Have it with some chips anytime your little heart desires.

Ole'.

Three Bean Corn Salsa

The end of summer means lots and lots of harvest.

We had planned to harvest lovelies from our own garden. We had so many glorious dreams for all of our crops.

The most glorious of dreams can be so easily squashed (haha pun totally not intended).

Harvesting our own veggies may not have really occurred this year. Our garden, well how shall I say it...it BOMBED.

No, not the bomb.

BOMBED.

Big. Time.

Blame it on learning to garden in a new climate. Blame it on Bean. Blame anything and everything is what I decided to do. That way I could feel better about all that wasted planting and all our sad non existent vegetables.

There is some good news in this woe-is-me boohoo fest.

We have many neighbors who have shared their over abundance.

We also have discovered Bountiful Baskets. Thanks to them we have been able to can/freeze/eat tons of wonderful produce.

Our family has enjoyed using and storing all of this produce.

We have made a lot of really refreshing things all thanks to massive amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables. .

One of the things we made recently is this Three Bean Corn Salsa.

Yum. I first tried this a little over a year ago when my SIL made it for a family function. I had been warned by many that I would probably want to inhale this salsa in large and unladylike quantities.

I just "pshhawed" them.

I mean really when am I ever unladylike...cough, cough.

Well they were all telling the truth. Inhale it I did. Oh it was just so yummy.

So when the stars aligned with fresh produce on my counter and a party that I had to make something for, I texted my SIL and asked how to make this salsa.

The list of ingredients was super easy. I ran to the store for the things I didn't have.

Chopped a very little.
Threw together a lot.
Opened a bag of tortilla chips and tasted some here and there...okay lots here and there.
Served up the rest at our neighborhood block party.

I know Summer is almost over and the season for light and refreshing food is coming to an end, but this salsa can be an all year round recipe.

Seriously, all the ingredients are easily found at most supermarkets. Plus if you store some of your produce from the Summer than you will have a little bit of the garden fresh stuff to still throw in.

If you like chips and salsa, give this tomato-free salsa a try. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Three Bean Corn Salsa

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 can red beans, drained and rinsed
1 can yellow corn, drained (or 1 1/2 cups thawed freezer corn)
1 can white corn, drained (or 1 1/2 cups  thawed freezer corn)
1 green pepper, seeded and diced
1-2 avocados, diced
1 cup zesty Italian dressing
1/3-1/2 cup chopped cilantro (more or less to you liking)
*lime juice for soaking the avocados in

Drain and rinse all the beans and the corn. Dump them all in a large bowl. Dice avocado and set them aside in lime juice to prevent browning. Dice pepper and chop cilantro.

Add avocado and green pepper to the beans and corn. Drizzle with the Italian dressing and mix gently.

Gently mix in the cilantro.

Serve right away or refrigerate.

It will keep in an airtight container for several days.

Enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by.