Cowboy Caviar – a hearty salsa that can go with anything!

Last week when I was picking up some produce at a local market, I noticed avocados were on sale. Ten for $7 so I grabbed ten and thought of what I would be making to use those puppies up in the next week. This was one thing on top of my list! It’s basically a salsa with a few extras added in there to make it extra special and stick to your ribs! It’s great for a party, served with tortilla chips, pita chips, or even toasted bread slices to make a little southwest style bruschetta. It’s great on tacos, burritos, burrito bowls, or on salads too! You can make it a day or so ahead, but just leave out the avocados, don’t cut into them and add them in just before serving. I learned from my avocado loving mom that you can store avocados in the fridge to help slow the ripening if you aren’t going to use them up right away. So what are you waiting for? Throw this dish together! As the one of a kind Cosmo Kramer would say, “Giddyup!”

I’ve seen many of these types of recipes swapped on Pinterest so I just looked at a few, took what I liked, removed what I didn’t like, adjusted the ingredients a bit and customized it to my taste. That’s the wonderful thing about making things like this. The recipe is just an idea, but you can make it all your own, changing things as you go along and really transform it into a dish that your tastebuds love! The tricky part is remembering to write down what works, what didn’t work, what things you like or dislike so you can remember for next time! That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to write this blog. I have so many recipes that I’ve changed or made up as I went along and my poor little brain can’t remember my iCloud password, let alone a bunch of alterations to a recipe. What did I come in the kitchen for again? Ha! So, it’s nice to have them all written down in one place so that when I go back over them I maybe will remember what I did and it will come back to me, or maybe not, but at least I’ll have instructions and pictures to help guide me along!

Cowboy Caviar

Ingredients:

This will make around 3 C of Cowboy Caviar

1/2 Can black beans, rinsed and drained.

1/2 large red onion – diced fine

1 bunch of cilantro (around 1/3 C chopped). I remove the leaves from the stems or have my kids help with that and then chop up the leaves and discard the stems, but you could include the stems if you like.

3 Roma tomatoes – diced

3/4 C sweet corn, fresh uncooked or frozen, slightly thawed

2 avocados – diced right before serving

Zest and juice of one lime

2 TBS olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

Kosher Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Directions:

Add diced tomatoes, onion, chopped cilantro, lime zest, black beans, and corn to a large bowl and stir to combine. Only add in avocado if serving immediately, otherwise don’t cut them open yet and leave it out until ready to serve or you’ll have brown avocado.