Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Southwestern Salad

We plan to have a potluck lunch in the office the Wednesday after Transfers.  This is a nice idea.  We put the phone on answering machine for half an hour (unless SOMEONE forgets to turn it back on when lunch is over...it could happen....) and just enjoy each other's company and yummy food.

This time we had hot Costco pizza,  chicken pasta salad,  cut fruit, bagels with three kinds of cream cheese (have you ever had cinnamon and brown sugar?  Deathly...), a gorgeous red velvet cake with ganache and lovely flower decorations on top and dribbling down the sides, and Southwestern Salad.

This salad was basically a can of red beans, drained and rinsed, a can of whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed,  half a sweet onion very finely diced, and one red bell pepper, finely diced.

All these were put into a large bowl and covered with Southwestern Dressing.  To make this the quickest and easiest, you can buy that sort of salad dressing. 

Pour the dressing over the salad ingredients and let it marinate overnight.  When ready to serve, bring it to the table with a big bowl of chopped greens for people to put on their plates then put a scoop of the vegetable mixture on top, then more dressing, if desired.  It was pretty good salad.  Don't ask Dear One, though, because he though it was too iffy to try.  No problem.  More for the rest of us.

The dressing I made:

All these ingredients I added to our blender:
1 cup loosely packed cilantro, including stems
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons lime juice
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
A little coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Fortunately I tasted it.  Not great, but I was committed to it since I was tired and did not want to go out to the store late at night--well, it was about 8 PM.  That is too late to go out to the store.  For me. 

Because I was unsure if there would be enough dressing, I added another half cup yogurt.  Because this was also so acidic I also added, horror of horrors, one Tablespoon of sugar.  Made all the difference.

It was good enough to take to the potluck.  People said nice things, but then, people always say nice things. Mostly.  I was not embarrassed by it, and because there were only six of us, there was leftover food to take home. I have enjoyed it!