Summer is not the perfect time to cook — it is the perfect time for a salad. Gwen Waters tosses up Southwestern layered salad with cilantro-jalapeno dressing. Waters, who has been making the salad for 10 years, adapted the recipe she saw in a cookbook.

“(The salad) is easy to do. You can use fresh corn or canned corn and canned black beans,” she said.

Waters enjoys cooking but did not grow up cooking. She said, “My mother cooked dinner every night. My job was to set the table and make the salad.

She learned to cook after she got married. Waters and her husband, Charlie, have two grown sons.

She said, “I just learned from friends. Over the years I just liked to cook. I just love it.”

The Southwestern salad one of Waters’ favorites for entertaining. She recently served it to her birthday club.

“Everybody just loves this salad,” Waters said. “Every time I have it, everybody goes crazy for it.”

She often makes the salad a meal by adding sliced grilled chicken breasts to it. Dressing can make or break a salad, and the dressing is what makes this salad. Olive oil, vinegar and cilantro and jalapeno peppers compliment the Southwestern style ingredients.

“The dressing is just so good,” Waters said. “ The (Southwestern layered salad) is very easy. You just put all the stuff together and the dressing in the blender.”