I made this for Christmas at my mother’s house. This served as a light dish amidst the heavy starch-and-dairy load of Christmas day. It was totally improvised, so unfortunately I can’t give exact measurements. It’s hard to cook with accuracy when there’s so much going on in one kitchen. However, I’ll give you the gist of it. My uncle Dan said he thought this would be a good accompaniment to barbeque in the summer – and most of the ingredients are available in the farm garden.
For visual appeal, I chop the vegetables (besides the tomatoes) about the same size as the black beans. If I was actually making an effort to make an impressive recipe rather than an improvised one, I would probably have included more vegetable variety and steps to this. Adding jicama & roasting the pepper beforehand, then removing the skin, are the most important changes I would make. I’d probably also add a serrano chili. Then I’d be tempted to throw in some cilantro and lime juice, but at that point we’d really be getting toward salsa territory.
2 cans black beans (at home I would cook them myself, but since mom doesn’t have a pressure cooker, I used the ones in cans)
1 pint grape tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 orange pepper, chopped finely
1 cucumber, peeled, seeds removed, and chopped finely
Dressing:
Orange juice
Grapefruit juice
Olive oil (Extra-virgin was what was around, but if you keep a less strong olive oil around for other applications, this would be a perfectly okay place for it)
Salt and pepper
Gosh, sorry about the dressing. I promise to go back and work out the proportions someday.
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