Warm Spinach Salad Tacos And Homemade Flour Tortillas (My Eat to Live Quandary)

I had a hankering for a warm spinach salad. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a Rick Bayless espisode on PBS Create (I LOVE this channel!) and watched him take a very simple approach to this yummy favorite and add chorizo in place of bacon (he is just brilliant, is he not?). Well, I just so happened to have some "past-the-expiration-date" vegan chorizo links in the fridge begging to be used. (Personally, why expiration dates on vegan foods--really, why?) Anywho--this really rocked and you should run home and make it tonight! But I insist you make your own tortillas or else bad food karma may occur!

Why had I never made homemade flour tortillas before?

There is no excuse to not make your own tortillas, NO excuse! They are simple and add a "grubby" elegance and flavor that made my kitchen feel like a little cantina!

So simple, again--a recipe from Rick Bayless. Watching him make his own flour tortillas is enough to make any man or woman yearn for some of this Mexican yum!

Mmmmm.

I don't spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the TV. In fact, I can barely sit still enough to make it through a movie. But being in the kitchen around five in the evening wondering what to make, I usually will turn on PBS Create (because that is when the old school cooking shows are on) vs. Food Network and an episode of Paula Deen y'all. (And I have checked out the new Cooking Channel and so far, love that I can watch re-runs of shows I missed when we did not have Food Channel--like Nigella Express!)  

Nine times out of ten, while watching these shows, I will be met with an amazing idea for a vegan substitution. Enter this salad! I am not trying to be a cop out with this recipe here--but it is so utterly simple and Rick has broken it down so well, I am like--just go to his website: Rickbayless.com and search for his "warm spinach salad" and take off with it giving it your own spin. While you are there, be sure to pull down the recipe for "flour tortillas"--they made the meal, honestly!

My version of the salad uses sliced vegan chorizo links in place of his Mexican chorizo that crumbles. I also added some corn and extra spices to the mix. It came together in like a hot minute. I swear! On the flour tortillas--again, so easy. I do not have some fancy "tortilla" press because I am Wal Mart gal and not a Williams Sonoma gal (well except for that Vitamix moment--but hey, I HAD to have one!). So I used some elbow grease and a sheet of plastic wrap over my dough, placing the little balls on top of a lightly floured counter and viola--I was makin' some homemade flour tortillas to die for! I halved the recipe because we did not need twelve of these babies hanging around or I would have totally consumed half myself. As it was, I made just enough for Mr. Thyme and I to enjoy.

So here I am in week two of the Eat to Live lifestyle change. Blah, blah, blah. Alright, I'll tell you the straight skinny. I am STARVING! Okay?! I cannot live on a pound of greens a day--I just can't! I am like "what's with the growling stomach all day long?"--and I am grumpy in this state! I opted for the half Eat to Live, half Love to Eat lifestyle plan instead. Besides, I must say that personally, I think Dr. Fuhrman looks a bit "thin" and "tired"--sure he has good blood tests and all--but honestly, I think too much tofu CAN be a bad thing. So in my own version of Love to Eat--I am trying like mad to stick with at least some parts of the Eat to Live plan. Do I eat a head of cabbage a day? Heck no. But I try to have my salad with every meal. Like with our pizza on Friday. I made a salad. Grant it, I ate all my salad, but then I ate half a pizza, too. (Hey, it was whole wheat, give me a break!) Then, there is my mad, crazy sugar tooth problem. You saw my cake. I cannot live without cake. (I try to incorporate the fruit here when I can.)

So what about snacking? About four every afternoon, I get this insatiable craving for about anything I can get my hands on to eat. It lasts for about fifteen minutes, and then it's over. Like a tornado. I don't know if this is some prehistoric survival mechanism or what (eating as much as one can before the sun sets in case the end of the world were to arrive)--god knows I've analyzed it. I've tried to drink water through it. Tried one cracker. Tried dried fruit. Nope. It goes like this: Oh, I'll have a half a peanut butter sammich. Oh, and I think some chips might be good now. Mmmm. What about some chocolate. Then the chocolate chips come out. Then after fifteen minutes of this mad woman antic, I am all better and will begin cooking dinner. . . on a full stomach! What the?! (And please note--I have NEVER craved a salad!)

Last night I had "snack" cravings bad. They hit about eight. I really, really wanted some popcorn. Now, I know you might be thinking: Popcorn. How bad can that be? Well, with half a stick of Earth Balance over it, pretty bad. Plus it's eight at night. .  . come on--all those calories will just feed and fester and cause me to be one big bloat by morning. Ugh. So, I wanted to create a version of popcorn that would meet the required "pound of greens" theme from Eat to Live. I thought about ways to make a bowl of chopped cabbage into a sort of bowl of popcorn. Why not make little bitty chopped up pieces, then sprinkle with some nutritional yeast and maybe some red wine vinegar and a few snips of fresh herbs. I bet this would be good! Well, by the time I finished fantasizing about cabbage, it was time for bed. So I used the mental exercise to whittle down the old stomach craving. How's that for a Love to Eat modification?!

As I said, I am in my second week. I know I said early on I would not be all like: Hey, I lost so-and-so pounds. Well, let me state for the record, like any sane woman, I changed my mind and here is my update: I lost a pound and half. At this rate, I will lose six pounds in six weeks. To me, that seems doable, but in the meantime, I have to work on the snack attack monster and try to figure out ways to turn cabbage into other crave-worthy edibles.