Cool Southwestern Salad with Corn and Avocado

Tonight's dinner was another recipe from Real Simple magazine. Hey, it's not my fault that the August issue was packed with tasty treats! :) The recipe itself was pretty straightforward, but I was so scatterbrained while making it that I kept skipping steps and forgetting things, so I was forever picking pinto beans out of the lettuce so I could rinse them, and remembering after I had already added 1/4 cup of bottled lime juice that I had bought two fresh limes to squeeze. After I finally managed to wrangle my head in the right direction, the salad turned out really good. The lime dressing made it taste really light and fresh, but the avocado added enough bulk to fill you up. And it was so tasty! I made some corn mufffins to go with it at the last minute, as well as the tortilla chips suggested in the recipe. Plus we have Cody staying with us, and that boy is starving 30 seconds after he eats, so I wanted to make sure there was enough to eat.
So far (day two, I know) of making new food has been pretty fun. I practically never use a recipe when I cook, so it's nice to slow down enough to read and think about what I'm doing along the way. And I especially like getting some new ideas and trying some things I haven't done before. If we're lucky, this could lead to a whole new world of North family eating, and if not, at least we will have eaten well for a whole week :)