Courtesy a la Christine

A very good friend of mine shared with me her love of fresh cilantro 3 or 4 years years ago. She told me how she loved the extra flavor it added to salad and went on for a few minutes as she picked leaves off of the stems of a fresh bunch of cilantro. She griped about the exhorbitant cost of the herb in our small, out-of-the-way town, reminisced about working at Taco Bell in her youth and then we went on to talk about husbands, children and well,you know... life.
That conversation, years ago, spurned me to make some homemade salsa for a picnic yesterday. I was at the market and saw some ridiculously overpriced cilantro (you see, I live in another small town now while she has moved on to bigger and better cities) next to some very reasonably priced tomatoes and VOILA! The idea was born.
Hubbie loved the salsa. I got a few recipe requests. No pictures... I left my camera in the car and was kicking myself for not taking pictures at the picnic. Well, I'll share my recipe with you at least. It was a spur of the moment, throw it together kind of thing but I'm sure that you can play with the measurements and make it work for you.
Keep in mind, I made this for a potluck, so the recipe yielded quite a bit--probably 8 cups or so.

Ingredients:
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
1 small onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
3 cups frozen corn, cooked
1 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
5 tomatoes, diced
2 small jalepenos, seeded and finely diced
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

I mixed the garlic, cilantro, salt, cumin and pepper well then added in everything else and chilled for a couple hours to let the flavors blend. Enjoy!