What interns eat: Mexican corn, bean, and zucchini salad aka corn salsa

As many of you know, I am a psychiatry intern who started on July 1, 2015. I'm currently on internal medicine wards, so I'm living the life of a traditional intern working at least 80 hours  a week and learning so much that sometimes I feel like my brain is expanding out of my skull. It's an interesting  and tiring feeling . Who knows why I felt the need to start blogging again the in the context of being tired and overworked. My psychodynamic theory is that I need to identify with something other than medicine so activities like food blogging and yoga keep me human. 

I am one of the lucky interns who works Labor day. Mostly I'm happy that I'm not the unlucky intern working Thanksgiving or Christmas. Who knows what patients I'll encounter tomorrow...Maybe the sweet grandma with community acquired pneumonia? Or perhaps, more likely, the older, usually drunk gentleman, who decides that Labor day weekend is the perfect time to try to quit alcohol and starts withdrawing. In order to provide compassionate and effective care in either one of these scenarios, I pack breakfast and lunch of delicious food prepared in my tiny kitchen. 

I find cooking relaxing. However, I cook for both sustenance and a way to unwind--I have to be efficient in the kitchen. Today, in 2 hours,  I prepared an eggplant and tofu stir fry, the vegetable salad I present today, and made breakfast for the week. This way I have most of my meals covered throughout the week and can supplement the missing meals with fried eggs or kimchi quesadillas. 

Lots of tiny kitchen cooking and dish-washing

I've recently made many iterations of the "vegetable salad" which is basically chopped vegetables tossed with a tasty sauce. Last week I made a tomato, artichoke heart, cauliflower, pesto salad.  A vegetable salad is versatile  and can be eaten over rice, noodles, with an egg, on top green salad, or any other way your imagination might lead you. I make a good amount of the chopped vegetable salad and eat it in a variety of ways for either lunch or dinner. This way, I'm not always eating in the hospital cafeteria or spending too much money at the super trendy and too attractive Whole Foods two blocks from my apartment. 

This week, this vegetable salad is a result of half-hearted grocery shopping as I haven't sincerely grocery shopped in two weeks. I cobbled this salad together with vegetables left over from my last trip to  the farmer's marks and this morning, I went to the Dupont farmer's market with a visiting friend. 

Farmer's market goods and the
last of my HEB products

Mexican corn, bean, zucchini salad with salsa verde aka the Mexican chopped vegetable salad aka corn salsa

2 ears of sweet corn with the kernels off the cob

2 summer squashed, halved and thinly sliced

1 clove of garlic thinly sliced

a large handle of cherry tomatoes, quartered

3 carrots, cut into small cubes

1 can of red kidney beans or black beans

about 1/2 cup of green salsa (Usually, I prefer the small can of Herdez salsa verde sold in the Latin section, but I had the end of a jar of Trader Joe's Hatch Valley green salsa

olive oil

salt to taste

Chopping all the vegetables is the most time consuming part of this recipe, but once everything is chopped, the salad comes together in 10 minutes

1. Start by washing and thinly slicing the zucchini aka summer squash and slicing the garlic

2. In  large frying pan, add 2 generous tablespoons of olive oil, once warmed over medium heat, add the sliced garlic to flavor the oil. Do not burn the garlic, we are going for a subtle taste of garlic. Add the sliced zucchini in a flat layer to the oil, and let it sit without stirring for about 5 minutes. The goal is lightly browned zucchini. After these 5 minutes, shake the pan, cook for another 2-3 minutes and then pour the zucchini into a large bowl. 

3. While the zucchini is browning, you can start to prepare the rest of the vegetables: slice the kernels off the corn, cube the carrots, and tomatoes, wash the kidney beans

4. Combine all the vegetables together in a large bowl. Add the green salsa to the vegetables, and gently mix together. Add salt to taste.

 Enjoy as a salsa with chips, use it as the filling for tacos, eat as a topping for fried eggs, the options are many. Another great addition is adding avocado and scallions right before you serve it.

 This salad can be made with any type of vegetables that mix well with Mexican flavors. In winter time when I want homemade salsa, I use canned corn, canned black beans, radishes, red onions, and carrots and because of modern agriculture tomatoes are available year round. The basic formula is canned beans, 2 types of crispy vegetables, tomatoes, a little bit of onion and salsa. Viola, you have food  for a party or food for the week. 

Mason jar lunch