Black Bean and Summer Vegetable Salad

Black Bean and Summer Vegetable Salad

My next-door neighbour has been handing me cucumbers all month. One day we also got a dozen ears of corn, and recently cherry tomatoes have started coming over the fence from her too.

We ate this on its own as a light meal – the black beans add protein, and the corn is a starchy vegetable, so it’s almost complete on its own.

Black Bean and Summer Vegetable Salad

1/2 a cucumber
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 ear corn, cooked (mine was leftover from a batch of barbecued ears)
1/2 can black beans
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the cucumber and tomato into quite small pieces.
2. Cut the corn kernels off the cob and add to the other vegetables.
3. Rinse and drain the black beans.
4. Add the olive oil and vinegar, and stir to combine. Add a little salt and pepper if you like.

I’m sure later in the season I’ll start adding herbs and spices to perk up the taste, but right now it tasted so fresh and delightful without that I wasn’t even tempted.

Half the recipe gives you 2 servings of vegetable for only 225 calories, or 4 Weight Watchers points. You’re also getting 7.5g of fibre, a good push towards your daily requirement. You can leave out the oil to bring it down to 185 calories and 3 points, but olive oil is good for you in small amounts like this.

Potato Salad

We’re going to a potluck barbecue tonight, and along with some burgers to throw on the grill, I’m taking a small potato salad to share. I’ve been devouring (metaphorically) the Smitten Kitchen website, reading all the back posts over the past couple of weeks; it’s the site I wish I was writing. Oh well! I’ll just point you to all her veggie recipes and you can see the delicious-looking cakes and cookies yourself if you like; I won’t tempt you here.  She heavily adapted Roseanne Cash’s Potato salad, and I’ve adapted it again, since I hate egg in potato salads.

Potato Salad

1 pound new potatoes
2 dill pickle spears, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 stalk celery, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
6 green onions, white & green parts, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
3 tbsp light mayonnaise
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1. Quarter and boil the new potatoes until cooked (ideally you cooked double for last night’s dinner). Drain and let cool completely.
2. Add everything else and mix together. Add salt and pepper if it seems to need it.

Eat a quarter of this and you’ve got just 135 calories, or 3 Weight Watchers points.