Vegan Delight
A new vegan restaurant just moved in up the street from my office. This is definitely exciting in and of itself, but please understand that in South Jersey that's akin to saying, "friendly aliens just landed at the end of my street". South Jersey is nothing if not endless restaurant chains and Italian food, peppered heavily with diners, and the odd excellent foreign restaurant thrown in here and there for good measure. So a local vegan restaurant is beyond unusual, and one existing a mere mile away is a remarkable stroke of luck for me.
And the food is fabulous (and cheap!). Yesterday I had mock chicken & broccoli over brown rice. Today I had a "fish" sandwich. I am in veg. heaven. I'm getting better at choosing more vegan options for myself, but for those of you gaping in surprise at me gushing about vegan food, I'm still not ready to let go of eggs & cheese just yet. Mostly cheese, which I still maintain they will pry from my cold, dead hands.
At first, I was pretty worried about the calories, because I have been religiously counting them (thank you, caloriecounter.about.com!) since it is the only thing that seems to work in keeping my weight down, and vegan does not necessarily equal low cal. (see "french fries"). I put fifteen pounds on this summer before I finally gave up & returned to discipline, which I've enjoyed rather more than I might have thought. After a few failed attempts, I feel like I have a better handle on what works & what doesn't, and I'm not quite as high strung about exactly perfectly right amounts (they say that if you scratch a Pisces, you'll find a Virgo just under the surface).
So anyway, after doing a bit of research and adding up the calories, I'm finding that it's about 400-ish calories for a pretty comfortable sized healthy meal for about 6 bucks, and so aside from budget considerations, I have given myself the green light to eat there as often as I want, as long as I'm willing to calculate everything, which my apparently Virgo subconscious loves anyway. Funny how much you can eat if you leave off the cheese......