Grilled Chicken with Southwest Salsa

So after spending the first day of Memorial Day Weekend at my parents house, we trekked down the shore to my aunt's. For such a large house, man was it packed!! There were 9 of us staying there. You know what that means? Captive audience...

Yes, my darling readers, I finally had a large group that I could force to eat my numerous cooking tests! Ok, I took it easy on them this weekend (don't want to scare them off too early...plus, it was a holiday) but I am so looking forward to the number of summer recipes I can get opinions on! I mean, obviously I think everything I cook is delicious (ok, maybe that's not true, but I do like to get multiple opinions on recipes because I can then improve them based on feedback). 

As you know, I may have a minor case of OCD. For my blog, this means a calendar which has a schedule of posts (color-coded, of course), a notebook of recipes to blog (divided by season) and a "top 10" list of recipes to cook. So when I was asked to cook, which I was obviously counting on, I whipped out my handy dandy notebook as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do. Side note--it's not. People look at you funny. But I digress.

Since I'm easing into the weekend, I decided to make grilled chicken with southwest salsa for Saturday's dinner. I also have to give the caveat that...I can't grill. Like at all. Not that shocking though. I do have lady parts, and I seems like you can't learn to grill if you don't have those other parts. Or my dad defends his grill as his domain and doesn't let anyone into it. One or the other. That being said, I would like to byline all grilling recipes for the summer as saying...the actual grilling was completed by one Thomas O'Brien, expert grillmaster and expert at drinking beers while doing so. What a multi-tasker! Which means, for all intents and purposes, every grill recipe will simply say "grill until cooked". Sorry ahead of time.

Grilled Chicken with Southwest Salsa
PDF available here.

fancy plates my aunt has, no? Mine are from Target. I'm pretty sure hers...are not. I'm getting so classy cooking for people with real dinnerware! #upgrade

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast (per person), trimmed
Italian dressing

One can black beans
2 Haas avocados
½ red onion, minced
1 tomato, chopped
3 pieces of corn on the cob, cooked
2 limes

Directions:

1. Marinate the raw chicken in Italian dressing for 2 hours in the fridge. Remove chicken from marinade and grill until cooked through.

2. Prep the salsa by draining and rinsing the black beans. Place in a large bowl. Next, chop and remove the avocado from its shell*. Add to the bowl with the minced red onion and chopped tomato. Once the corn on the cob cools, remove the kernels from the cob and throw away the cob. Mix the ingredients together. Cut the limes in half and squeeze the juice over the salsa. Toss again.

3. Serve the chicken with salsa scooped on top.

NOTE: This salsa is a meal in and of itself so feel free to serve to vegetarians. My brother's girlfriend came in from Florence and got to my aunt's at like 10 and ate just the salsa and was perfectly content without any chicken.

Full plate--grilled chicken at top, grilled veggies on left and summer tomato salad (coming soon) on right. Healthy and delish!

*The easiest way to do this is to cut in half longways by rotating the knife around the pit of the avocado. Once halved, remove the pit by pushing the knife into it and flicking it out. Then slice the avocado while still in its shell and remove using a teaspoon.