Lunch:

1/2 a whole wheat pita stuffed with spinach and lamb’s lettuce, shredded carrot, and 2 pieces of tofurkey lunchmeat. I usually add some avocado slices, but we’d just had some last night. Topped with a small amount of tasty Annie’s Green Garlic dressing.

Fortunately, I also brought lots of fruit and some hummus and veggies – it was another late night, and the valuation team decided on Max & Erma’s to order in tonight. Even the veggie burger, according to their nutrition info, has 28 grams of fat and 650 calories. I made the mistake of trying to order it at a company lunch – seeing that everything else is topped with bacon or wrapped in cheese – and it tasted like wet newspaper. I do wish sometimes that when we – as employees of a financial services company that does business here in richmond – went out to eat or ordered in or had things catered, would stop spending every last cent on crap-ass chain restaurants that send their profits back to their headquarters…elsewhere. Duh, boost the economy of the city in which you live, people!

Dinner

Tonight I decided to do a spaghetti bolognese sauce thing, by mincing up the last neglected celery stalks and carrots at the bottom of the vegetable crisper, along with some onion and squash. TVP (textured vegetable protein) takes the place of ground meat or fake meat. It’s dried, comes in bags in the natural foods section, and rehydrates in whatever sauce you decide to toss it in.

Again I only made 5 ounces (dry) of spaghetti between us both, and used some Trader Joe’s no salt added tomato sauce.

The accompanying salad – hearty enough for a main dish, really, was of white beans and arugula. The arugula is a nicely spicy complement to the white beans, but spinach works too. For the dressing:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 3 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 3 tsp water
• a few good shakes of a salt replacement spice (I used Trader Joes 21 Spice Salute)
• basil, dried or 1 frozen cube, or 6 leaves fresh, chopped

Blend up in a food processor.Julienne up some red onions if you like, mix up a can of cannelini beans and about 6 ounces arugula, pour the dressing on top and toss.

I guess some sort of garlicky low calorie Italian dressing would work too. We have an assortment of dressings to keep salads interesting. Drew’s has some damn tasty dressings and with no dairy, preservatives, or artificial anything. Sold at Whole Foods here in Richmond.

Once upon a time, I made this with 1/4 cup olive oil. There’s virtually no taste difference between that and 1 tsp of oil mixed with water.

Oh and I steamed some broccolini also.

We were both stuffed to the brim.