Grilled Eggplant and Tomato Sandwiches with 'Roquefort' Dressing

These make a great half of a dinner, with either a bowl of vegetable soup or a salad to make up the other half.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons plain soy yogurt (such as Whole Soy), a tablespoon and a half crumbled vegan blue cheese (use the 'soy blue' from Sunergia - yum!), 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, one tablespoon vegan mayonnaise (I like the lite canola mayo from Spectrum), and one small minced garlic clove. Set aside.

Heat a grill or grill pan on the stove over medium-high heat and coat with cooking spray. Trim the ends off one Japanese eggplant (about 1/2 a pound) and then cut into three slices, lengthwise. Japanese eggplant works best here because it is skinnier than more globe-shaped eggplant varieties, but substitute Italian eggplant if you can't find the former.

Coat each eggplant slice lightly with cooking spray and grill on each side for three minutes. Remove from the grill and cut each piece in half again, crosswise; set aside.

Place 4 (one-ounce) slices of sourdough bread on the grill pan and grill about 3 minutes on each side, until lightly browned (watch the cook time carefully though; I found that a minute and a half per side did the trick for the bread).

Divide the yogurt mixture evenly among two slices of bread. Top each with 3 eggplant slices, 2 (1/4 inch) slices of tomato and 1/2 cup of trimmed arugula. Top with a second slice of bread. You'll have two delicious sandwiches, 270 calories each.

(Full disclosure: I didn't have any parsley left, so used cilantro instead; it seemed to do the trick in a pinch! As to the sourdough bread, Rudi's Organic Bakery makes a pre-sliced sourdough loaf that is 100% vegan: http://www.rudisbakery.com/home)

Cost:
plain soy yogurt $0.99
'blue cheese' $4.19
eggplant $0.80
sourdough bread $
tomato $1.26
arugula $2.50