Rice and Bean Salad

I love the flavours in this salad! You can vary the vegetables according to what you have on hand.

2 cups cooked basmati rice (or rice of your choice)
1 tin black beans rinsed and drained
1 cup canned or fresh corn kernels
1/2 cup diced orange or red pepper
1 tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/4-1/2 cup diced red onion (to taste)
Finely grated rind of one lime

Dressing:
Whisk until well blended-

1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Mix  ingredients together and add dressing. The salad keeps well for a couple of days. Other vegetables that work include diced carrots, cucumber, zucchini, celery.

Variation: Use other grains such as quinoa, farro, barley or couscous

Recipe adapted from this one on myrecipes.com

Ice Cream Sandwiches

One of our national grocery chains is featuring ice cream sandwiches made with their store brand chocolate chip cookies. Right now it costs $4.99 for six small ice cream sandwiches. They are very tasty though. We made some today with small homemade peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which were made with whole wheat flour and less sugar than the store cookies. I think ours would win a taste test anywhere!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups quick oats
3/4 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt; whisk in oats until combined.
In another bowl, cream butter and peanut butter together. Stir in sugar and then eggs and beat together until creamy. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture gradually until well combined. Add chocolate chips.

Measure a rounded tablespoon (15ml) of dough, place on cookie sheets and flatten slightly. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown around edges. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

We made approximately 40 cookies with this amount of dough.

I used less than half of a 2 litre carton of ice cream that came in a rectangular waxed cardboard container. Cut a 3 cm (more or less) slice of ice cream and cut it into 4 to 6 squares that are the size of your cookies. Place ice cream between two cookies and freeze immediately. You could use a cookie cutter to get perfectly matched circles of ice cream.