Salsa Salad

3 large red leaf lettuce leaves (or your favorite green substitute),
   chopped into bite-size pieces
1 cup soaked & cooked garbanzo beans
1 cup  soaked & cooked black beans
1/4 onion, chopped very fine
6 baby carrots, chopped coarsely
1 avocado, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped very fine
1 tablespoon olive oil
Dash cayenne pepper (tasting as you dash as to not over do it)
Salt to taste

Optional: tortilla chips

This creation was inspired by my graduate professor Cheryl, who always knew the perfect day to bring food for the office—the days I forgot lunch or had no food at home to bring! Replace the garbanzo or black beans with Great Northern beans, pinto beans, cannellini beans, kidney beans . . . whatever you prefer.

Combine all ingredients and devour. Tortilla chips can be crunched up and added to each personal salad or used to scoop up the salad for eat bite.

Summertime Pasta Salads

Of all the gluten-free pastas I've tried, hands down, Mrs. Leeper's is the best. I buy the organic rice vegetable twists, and actually just started ordering them in bulk on Amazon.com. Some of the other rice pastas I've tried are so temperamental to cook, hard on the inside and mushy on the outside, but not these ones. Although beware that I have tried the Mrs. Leeper's corn pasta, and I'm not a fan. See what you prefer, but I recommend sticking to the rice pasta.

To throw together a pasta salad I mixed together the following:

gluten-free pasta twists
olive oil
cucumber, chopped
tomatoes, chopped
green bell peppers, chopped
black olives, chopped
Parmesan cheese (vegan option is Vegan Grated Topping)
salt

This is another combo option I tried just yesterday:

gluten-free pasta twists

olive oil

spinach, chopped 

tomatoes, chopped

avocado, diced

Romano cheese, crumbled

salt

Maybe throw in hicama, cilantro, parsley, orange, red, & yellow bell peppers, asparagus, grated carrots, chopped kale, or cashews. Have fun making your own salad combinations.