CORN BREAD TACO SALAD

I feed 10 missionaries every Wednesday and so far they have eaten everything with gusto.  I am on the lookout for something that is a little easier and doesn't require being heated and can be done ahead. I found this idea on Pinterest and it looked interesting.  I tweaked it some from the original.   I will make it again.  I made a double recipe because they eat a lot.  I am trying not to overfeed them but I always get the feeling that they could eat more.

Z'tejaz Cornbread

Ingredients:
3/4 cup corn meal
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 p. baking soda 
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2/3 C. corn, frozen or canned (drained)
3/4 C milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions:
Mix all dry ingredients together. In a large mixing bowl, whisk all wet ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to form batter.  Spread into a well greased sided cookie sheet  (the batter needs to be about 1 to 1 1/4 inches thick) and bake for 15 minutes or until it is nice and brown.and crispy. Cut into bite size cubes

Cut up a small head of Romaine lettuce into bite size cubes (if washed, dry a bit) and put on top of the cornbread.  You want a good couple of inches or so of lettuce, then add:  2 cans of drained and rinsed black beans or pinto beans,  a layer of bite size tomato cubes, some sliced red peppers if desired and some avocados cut up.  At this point add some cubed chicken for a main dish salad, which I did or keep it as a vegetable side.  This can be halved.  It makes a very large salad to feed about 10-12 as a main dish. 

THE DRESSING

2 cloves of garlic grated into a small frying pan with 1 T. oil and 1 tsp. fresh ground cumin seeds and 1 seeded and minced Jalapeno pepper (get out the white membrane to control the heat)   Stir until a little brown. Add: 2 Cups mayonnaise and  1/2 C. buttermilk and 1 loose C. chopped Cilantro.  Even if you don't care for Cilantro you might want to do some here.  The flavor isn't that obvious.  Put into a narrow bowl and blend with an immersion blender or put into the lidded blender and blend until smooth.  Add 1/4 tsp. salt or to taste. 

Spread the top with the dressing and add some grated cheese of your choice.  This can be refrigerated for several hours at this point or even overnight.

When you serve scoop to the bottom to get some of the cornbread.  It is a nice diversion from the normal taco salad and great that it can be made ahead.  I liked it a lot!