Roasted Corn, Black Bean and Rice Salad

Except for church on Sunday, I spent my entire holiday weekend in my garden. It is looking great. My first crop of mesclun is ready for harvest. I also thinned my beets and combined the beet greens with the mesclun. We had a nice salad of it today. Our family Memorial Day cook-out was fun. I made this great salad. It's like a wild rice salad I had at the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg last summer. I have made it with wild rice, and it's wonderful, but very expensive. Today I used a mixture of brown rice and black Japonica rice from Lundberg Farms. It worked very well. Here's the recipe:

Roasted Corn, Black Bean and Rice Salad

Ingredients:
1 cup wild rice, brown rice or rice blend, cooked according to directions. Read the box, each kind of rice has a different cooking time,
1 cup black beans, soaked overnight and cooked - or a 16 ounce can black beans
1 cup roasted corn kernels
1/2 cup diced roasted red peppers
1 cup lightly toasted pecan halves
1 medium red onion chopped

Dressing made of:
1/3 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt or more as desired
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (I get mine from Hatch, New Mexico. You can't find better.)
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

Combine salad ingredients in large bowl. Whisk together dressing ingredients and pour over salad. Mix well. Chill for a few hours. Serve on a bed of mixed spring greens.

Where do you get one cup of roasted corn kernels? When my husband grills corn on the cob I make him grill extra, cut it off the cob and freeze it for use in salads and soups. I never thought I liked corn until I learned that a small amount of grilled corn is a wonderful addition to many recipes. The corn we tend to get here in Fredericksburg is silver queen. It's a very sweet white corn.