Meatless Dinners: "Meat"ball Subs

Today was a bit of a "cheat" day for me.  We like to go out once a week to a restaurant of some kind and to be honest, I like that part of the week!  We love Qdoba because the kids eat free on Sunday and we get out of there cheap and the food is fresh.   We actually tried Chipotle in town first but the line wrapped around so long and there were no tables available.  So on to Qdoba we went.

The old me would order the You Pick Two Combo with tortilla soup and 2 chicken tacos without cheese but maybe a dash of sour cream for flavor.  The new vegan me went for the veggie burrito with black beans and no sour cream nor cheese (and I ate only half of the tortilla and picked out some rice at that.)  In hindsight I should have maybe stuck to the salad as there was way too much refined, white flour and rice in the meal even taking off half the tortilla.  I went to the Qdoba website and calculated my salt intake, calories, etc. and the meal had a little over 1,000g of sodium and 580 calories.  Yikes on the salt!

When we got home after a day out and about, including church, lunch, a few grocery stores, and a nice afternoon walk, I was exhausted.  So I made this easy meal thanks to Happy Herbivore:

"Meat"balls in marinara sauce on a whole wheat hot dog bug with a heaping side of broccoli

The ingredients were pretty simple.  Leave me a comment with your email addy if you would like the recipe.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly as I didn't put the soy sauce in it to reduce the sodium content.  To make the marinara quickly I started with my favorite pasta sauce (fire roasted Classico) then added 1 large can of tomato puree.  As it is pretty much a 1:1 pasta sauce/tomato puree ratio, you essentially cut the salt in half.  I won't lie, it's not going to taste like the same old salty marinara.

That said, I thought it was really tasty, low cal, low fat, and EASIER TO MAKE than the meat version.

Cost Breakdown:

Gimme Lean Sausage Roll $3.50
Hot dog buns $1.50
marinara sauce $1.50
2 slices whole wheat bread for breadcrumbs $.25
1/2 c. non dairy milk $.25
Side of broccoli $2
2 TB nutritional yeast $.10
mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, seasonings (incidentals)
=  $9.10/4 (plus a little fudge for incidentals) = $2.50 ish per serving