Black Bean Salad

This salad's theme is a lot of greens. As usual, I am an improviser when it comes to cooking. I had black beans and wanted to make a salad, but I also wanted to use the vegetables that grow in my garden. With  a bit of creativity and a dash of spicy dressing the salad was born.

1. You will need:
A half a pound of dry black beans
Green and red peppers
Two or three medium tomatoes
A bunch of parsley (or cilantro), a bunch of scallions, and a bunch of garlic chives (optional)
A can of black pitted olives
Two pickles
And condiments: vegetable oil of your preference, vinegar, salt, black pepper, paprika, red pepper flakes.

2. Soak the beans overnight, drain and rinse, and then cook until done but not mushy. You can also do the quick soak: bring the beans to a boil, then shut the burner and let the beans sit for two hours. Rinse, and then cook until ready.

3. Cool the beans and chop all the ingredients in bite size pieces. Add to the salad bowl. Below is the partial salad with only beans, tomatoes, and parsley.

4. Here's the rest of the ingredients. Chop all the vegetables and greens and add to the bowl.

5. Save the juice from the olives can. Pour the juice into the mixing bowl and add (roughly) a teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, a half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes (if you like it hot. If not, omit the red pepper flakes). Add a half a teaspoon of paprika, then three tablespoons of vinegar and three tablespoons of vegetable oil.

The sauce was my own intuitive creation. But after I tasted it I could feel it lacked something - sweetness. We don't have any sugar or artificial sweeteners in the house, but we do have stevia  extract. So, I added ten drops of stevia, and that just made it.

Here's the stevia I use. It is incredibly economical, because you only need but a few drops to really sweeten the dish or a sauce. And there is no dextrose, or other plastic or wood filler in there. Just plain nature made zero calorie sweetener.


Mix the sauce well and pour over the salad. Mix well and refrigerate for two hours (if you have the will power). Turn the salad once per hour. It does really taste better after being refrigerated and marinated for two hours.

Here's the finished product, black bean salad. It is incredibly tasty. If you want a lighter calorie meal, you can just line up the plate with the greens of your choice, like lettuce or kale, and then pour some of the bean salad on top of the greens.