 Hi everyone. We're making Mexican bean salad today. This is a no-cooking type of recipe. We're gonna be using canned beans and we're gonna be cutting up some fresh vegetables to put into it and I tell you this is the first video that I've shot since going into shelter in place and so we're gonna be using things that we already have using produce and things that I have. We really shouldn't be out there shopping in crowds and stuff so hopefully you won't either. Use what you have improvised when you need to. Okay? I'm Rockin' Robin and I'm gonna show you how to make this delicious bean salad right after this. Before we get into our recipe go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you'll be notified every week when my new videos come out. I don't want you to miss them because we're always cooking up something delicious and healthy. Alright let's go over the ingredients. First up we're gonna use a couple of cans of beans. We're using canned beans because well it's just easier right and during this pandemic we want to make this easy and I'm sure you've probably got some beans in your cupboard. So I'm using kidney beans and white beans and I've drained them and I've rinsed them. We'll also need I'm gonna use some corn. I'm using some organic corn here. Now I've chopped up a few vegetables. We've got some chopped up tomato that's just what I happen to have and then I did the super fine dice here on some red onion, some celery and some red bell pepper and I also have some pumpkin seeds that we're gonna add to this for a nice little crunch. Now for our dressing ingredients this is the important part. We have some balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, olive oil. I'm using some fresh herbs that I happen to still have in my fridge which are some parsley and some organic fresh basil. I love to add basil to my recipes it's just a wonderful herb to use. Now I've also got some fresh lemon juice, lime juice, some salt, garlic powder. In this container I have some ground cumin, some ground coriander and some chili powder. Now for my sweetener we have to balance out all this acid so we have to add some sort of sweetener. Now I don't like to use regular sugar so I like to use if some of you've been watching my videos you know I like date paste. It's a wonderful sweetener lots of vitamins and minerals and fiber it's just a it's a good way to go it's low on the glycemic index so it works and it's easy to make and I have a video for you if you want to learn how to make it but I can tell you it's very simple and very quick boil up some dates that are pitted in just some water and then you just simmer it for 20 minutes pop it in the blender add a little of that liquid back until you make a nice paste like what we have here and you've got a great sweetener that will store in the fridge for about a week. If you don't have date paste or you want to use something else you can try my next choice would be maple syrup that works really well too but in the end use what you have so that you can try out this delicious salad. So we're going to start off by making our dressing we're going to take some olive oil and we're going to place it into a bowl. Now with this recipe ideally what we want to do is make the dressing and then marinate just the beans in it overnight that would be the best way to do this recipe because what happens is the flavors milled into the beans and it just gets really good some recipes are like that they're always better the next day but if we put all the vegetables in then they tend to get a little bit on the more soft side and that might not you know you may not like that so if you can do it go ahead and marinate the beans overnight if you can only do it for an hour that's okay too it all works so here we go with our apple cider vinegar now our balsamic we're just going to add a little bit of balsamic to this next we're going to add our salt to this sprinkle that in and you can always adjust these seasonings if you like garlic powder those spices that I showed you ground cumin coriander and chili powder you start stirring it a little bit now add the lemon juice and the lime juice and now for our sweetener I'm only going to add part of this I have three about three tablespoons worth and I don't know if I want to use it all until I taste it so we're going to put some of that in there now and then we're going to chop up a some of our fresh herbs the parsley and the basil toss that in and we'll just give that a whisk I'm going to give that a taste and see if we need to adjust any of the seasonings I'm going to go with a little more salt and I'm going to add a little bit more chili powder let me give it a little splash for just a little bit of heat just a hint now I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to place this into our beans and then we're just going to let that sit for a little bit and then we'll add the rest of our stuff all right let's pour that dressing right in there and get everything in there and we're going to let that marinate for about a half an hour at least I'm going to give this a toss and we'll come back in a bit and add all the rest the ingredients it's been about a half an hour I'm going to add the rest of my ingredients to this so we'll start with the celery toss that in I like to use that super fine dice because everything mixes in so nicely and you don't get big chunks of it and I just think it tastes better now I'm going to do some onions I don't know if I'm going to do all of this but we're going to do a good portion of it now keep in mind when you refrigerate this let's say you're going to serve it the next day for example you want to take this out of the refrigerator about a half an hour to an hour before you're actually going to have people eat it right because when you use olive oil and you refrigerate it it tends to get hard and get kind of gel like so you want to let that thaw out a little bit and come up to room temperature here's our bell peppers and toss all those in all right now let's add some yellow I'm going to add some of this corn I'm probably not going to add it all and we've got our tomatoes toss those in last thing we have are some pumpkin seeds which just add a little crunch you can use any nuts that you like and here you go guys this is the finished product all right I'm going to serve just a little bit up here so I can take a taste very delicious guys nice and refreshing we've got the crunch of the fresh bell peppers and the celery the onions all those flavors coming together very fresh tasting and very it has just the right amount of balance I think between citrus and you know the acidic part and the sweet part I think it's delicious so hope you guys give this a try all right that's our recipe for today I hope you enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe to my channel and leave me a comment and be well out there take care and we'll see you next time