fresh vegan taco salad

Taco salads are usually such a throwaway item.  I've been making them at home lately (mostly because I get a lot of lettuce in my CSA) and they are so much better than what you get in a restaurant!  I suppose the difference is that I use fresh, high quality, local ingredients instead of sad, bagged iceberg lettuce.  So, here goes...

For 2 huge salads, you'll need:

• 2-3 large handfulls of tortilla chips, crushed in your hands into smaller pieces
• 1 small head of red leaf lettuce
• ~10 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved (I've been buying the mini heirloom tomato boxes at Trader Joe's or tomatoes from the farmers' market since we aren't getting them in the CSA yet)
• 1 purple kohlrabi, washed, peeled, and put through the grater attachment on your food processor
• 1 ear of corn, cut off the cob, and quickly sauteed in vegetable oil
• 1 yellow pepper, half sliced, half diced
• 1 small can of black beans, drained & heated
• 1 avocado, sliced (optional)
• 6 oz cooked beefless ground beef seasoned with:
• 1/4 t chili powder
• 1/4 t cumin
• 1/2 t cayenne pepper
• dash salt
• 1/4 t paprika
• 1/4 t oregano
• cilantro lime dressing made with:
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 T balsamic
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 T vegan mayonaise
• small bunch cilantro leaves (about 1 handfull)
• 1/2 t bijol seasoning

The steps:

1. Prepare 1st seven ingredients and arrange on your plate with tortilla chips forming the bed
2. Cook the beefless ground beef in a skillet with the spices listed above.  If you're not vegan, use real beef, I suppose.  I've also used beefless beef strips and seasoned them similarly.
3. For the dressing, combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and pour over top.

Enjoy this with an ice cold beer.  Jeff & I ran a 5k yesterday and it was close to 100 degrees.  In short, we were starving by the time we got home (even after the free pizza and beer).  We wolfed these salads down.