Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Gluten-Free Recipe: Black Bean, Corn, and Tomato Salad

Gluten-Free Black Bean, Corn, and Tomato Salad

Refreshing Vegetarian Recipe with a Southwestern Style

This is a simple gluten-free recipe that I find quite refreshing in the Summer. Certainly you could eat this all year round, but it is at its finest when the tomatoes, corn, onion, and lemon are in season. I have found this recipe goes well with everything from Mexican-inspired dishes to just about anything else where the flavors of lemon and cumin make for a nice accent.

So, be creative and I'm sure you'll find plenty of other dishes to serve this with. And, it is actually quite good on crispy corn tortilla chips. By it's very nature, all the ingredients are (or surely should be) gluten-free and Celiac safe — just be sure to check the labels on your cans of black beans and other ingredients just to confirm. An added bonus is that this should be a very healthy salad option, and perhaps help you diversify a bit when it comes to your daily vegetable selections.

The Gluten-Free Recipe

15-ounce can of Black Beans (rinsed)
1 Pint of Cherry Tomatoes
10-ounces white corn - fresh, or drained canned, or thawed frozen corn
½ Cup Chopped Onion
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 Teaspoon Cumin
½ Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Rice Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

As for directions, it doesn't get too much simpler than this: just throw all the ingredients together in a bowl, and mix them up well. Let stand a bit before serving (either at room temperature or in fridge), and mix well right before distributing to individual bowls/plates (to cover ingredients well with the seasonings).

Chill any leftovers. I have eaten this salad for a couple days after making it fresh, and it has been fine. I prefer it the day it is first made, or the day after though , as I prefer most any dish with fresh tomatoes for that amount of time simply because tomatoes are best and most flavorful when eaten as close to fresh as possible.

Continue to read this Gluten-Free Blog for all sorts of gluten-free recipes, product-reviews, and related information. In addition, visit my Gluten-Free Recipes Site where many of the recipes I have featured on this blog are available.

4 comments:

Mrs. G.F. said...

I love this salad. I have a version of it, and I love to have some ready in the fridge..you have inspired me to make it!!

:)

Dianne said...

Mmmmmmmm! This looks good Mike!
I fancy putting together a salad now!

:)

Anonymous said...

Hi Mike
I've been struggling with gluten related issues for a while now. My gastro specialist has assured me that I don't have celiac disease and yet when out of desperation I tried to eliminate or at least drastically reduce gluten in my diet, I became a new woman. My bathroom issues disappeared. That's all good, but the reason I'm writing is because in addition to my daily bathroom issues, I have had these terrible episodes of stomach pain/burning and my blood pressure plummets, sending me into an almost unconscious state. When I typed gluten and vasovagal your blog came up and the description of the episode you had last september was similiar to mine. this is the first time I've heard someone else connect the two things. Anyways, I wanted to let you know that I would definitely assume your episode was a response to gluten. I am hereby officially off of gluten 100% . No more ambulance rides for me thank you very much! Your blog looks great. I will be checking in in the future!

Mike Eberhart said...

Tanya,
I'm glad my blog was enlightening for you, and I find it interesting you've had a similar experience with gluten. All of my pre-gluten issue of POTS (Positional Orthostatic Hypotension) and strange vaso-vagal responses are nowhere to be found, especially since I am nearly paranoid about what I will and will not eat (making sure things are truly, absolutely, gluten-free). When I look back now at what my life was like in those pre-GF days, I just think how lucky I am to have figured things out and been able to take steps to live a normal life again.

The whole thing with your gastro-enterologist assuring you that you don't have Celiac... well, it's hard to know for certain. Perhaps you have a true wheat-allergy (and not celiac), or you are one of a group that regardless of testing definitely still reacts in bad ways to gluten. I know there are at least a few of my readers that have figured out that (regardless of official tests for Celiac) if they life without gluten, their lives are normal - but with gluten, they are all messed up. So, there is definitely some connection there.

I have been digging more on the science-side of things, and plan to write a bit about some of the very interesting Celiac Disease related information I'm coming across - some things that are definitely not in the main-stream, but are from full-fledged scientific studies. And, I am really into figuring out the underlying nutritional/body-chemistry issues behind why we all feel so bad once gluten does its damage to us. E.g., to this date, I am still trying to get my blood-iron levels up to "normal", as my body seems to still not want to absorb it properly.

Thanks for sharing your own experiences, and I look forward to seeing you here in the future.