Taco Salad - Lite

Dinner last night was taco salad...a very light version.

I started by marinating some shredded cabbage in vinegar for an hour or so, then tossed it with some cucumber and romaine in the bottom of a  baked corn tortilla bowl (instructions follow).  For the beans, I water-sauteed some refried beans with green pepper, shallot, garlic, cumin, and red pepper flakes.  I then dolloped the beans on top of the cabbage salad mixture and in turn, topped that with shredded carrot and a quick salsa made from mango, green onion, and cilantro.

We used fresh tomato salsa as the dressing, but any dressing would be good, as would tofu sour cream and avocado...I was too lazy to make the sour cream and just plain out of avocado.  All in all, it was a lot of flavor in a few calories.

The baked corn tortilla bowls could have turned out better, but they did their job and they were tasty broken up with the salad.  Here's what I did to make the tortilla bowls:

Take a corn tortilla and brush one side of it with a 1:1 mixture of Bragg's Amino's (or soy sauce) and lime juice.  Then cut a 1-inch perpendicular slit around the edge at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock.  This enables you to fold the corn tortilla without it breaking (alternately, you could try warming the tortilla first and see whether that makes it pliable enough).  Then fold the tortilla into an oven-proof bowl, lime juice side up, and let it bake in a 450 (F) oven for about 5 - 8 minutes...watching it closely so it doesn't burn.

When you remove the tortilla from the bowl it may still be a little soft, but will harden up and retain the bowl shape as it cools.  I have a feeling that this would work very well with flour tortillas, as they are more flexible and would be easier to fold into the bowls without tearing...also they tend to be bigger, which would make them easier to work with and a better size overall...the tortillas do shrink a bit while baking.