Black Bean and Avocado Chopped Salad

Fresh, delicious, versatile, and satisfying. Those four words describe this chopped salad recipe that I got from my friend Jen Sikes. If you make only one recipe from this site, you must try this. I ate this as a fresh salsa dip with tortilla chips, a topper to my hamburger and a side to my turkey tacos. I ate those meals within four days and I never once got sick of the flavor combination. If there are any veggies that you are not a fan of, omit them. Have any veggies laying around or ones you can’t live without in a salad? Chop them up and add it to the bowl. I modified the recipe slightly, omitting the green onions and adding garlic.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons lemon juice (one small lemon)
1 Tablespoon whole grain mustard
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 can of black beans-drained and rinsed
1 cup fresh or frozen corn, thawed
1 avocado, sliced
1/2 cup diced red pepper
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup diced celery
2 green onions, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 pressed garlic clove
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a separate bowl whisk together the lemon juice and mustard. Blend in olive oil whisking continuously, and set aside. In a separate large bowl add the beans and chopped veggies and gently toss. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to coat. Enjoy!

Stuffing Bread

I used this recipe last year to make stuffing for Thanksgiving. This can be used in any stuffing recipe that calls for prepacked bread crumbs. These are so good that I had a hard time not grabbing a handful every time I walked past the bowl. In fact, I think they could also make a good salty snack!

Ingredients


1 loaf Udis whole grain bread
1 loaf Udis white bread
1/2 cup fresh flat leaf parsley
3 tbsp fresh sage
salt
pepper
Earth Balance

Directions


Spread the Earth Balance on both sides of each bread slice. Put the bread on a baking sheet. Broil the bread until brown and toasted. Repeat until all the bread is toasted. Once the bread has cooled, crumble into desired size pieces. Mix in the parsley and sage. Add salt and pepper to taste. Use in any stuffing recipe.

Whipped Cream

Finding a DF whip cream was quite the challenge - from trying to find substitutes to cook with, to just wanting to enjoy a dollop of whipped cream on a dessert. And I think I found a really good solution for both!

Rich's RichWhip Non-Dairy Topping

Rich's can be found in the frozen section of your grocery store. This was purchased at Bylery's but it looks like they are sold at Cub as well. The trial for this was to see if we could use it for strawberry shortcake. Look at how well it whipped up!

We added a little bit of powdered sugar and vanilla and it was perfect. Even for those of us who can eat dairy, it's still delicious. I haven't tried this product in any other recipes yet, but I think it will be a very good substitution for heavy whipping cream or half and half.

They do make another product called Coffee Rich Creamer. Kristie and I did a test to see if this one would make whipped cream. After almost 15 minutes of using the electric beater and still only seeing bubbles, it was deemed a failure. However this product might also be a good substitute for recipes that call for cream.