Roasted Red Pepper Spread Sandwiches

These sandwiches are perfect for lunch or an easy Sunday dinner.

Seed and finely chop 1/2 cup cucumber (about 1 small). Drain and finely chop one (7-ounce) bottle of roasted red bell pepper. Spread the cucumber and red pepper onto several layers of paper towels (and here I'll make a plug for a recycled brand, such as Seventh Generation...) and let stand 5 minutes, to drain the excess moisture.

Using a rubber spatula, spoon the cucumbers and red bell peppers into a medium bowl. To the bowl, add: 3/4 cup plus 1/3 cup softened vegan cream cheese (such as Tofutti's Better than Cream Cheese), 3 tablespoons minced red onion, 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 minced garlic clove. Stir with a fork to combine.

(Note: the funny numbers on the 'cream cheese' are because the original recipe called for 3/4 cup 1/3-less-fat cream cheese and 1/3 cup fat-free cream cheese. Your choices are more limited, however, so use all the same kind! Of course it should go without saying that vegan cream cheese is naturally lower in fat than the dairy kind).

Spoon 1/2 a cup of the spread onto each of 4 (1 and 1/2 ounce) slices of whole-grain bread. You'll want a very sturdy bread to stand up to this spread, so I chose the Wheat and Bran bread from The Baker.

Top each of those 4 slices with 2 leaves of romaine lettuce, and then an additional slice of bread, so you have 4 sandwiches total. Each one is 360 calories.

If you like, assemble the sandwiches a bit ahead of time, but then keep them chilled so the spread stays pretty firm.

Cost:
cucumber $0.99
bottled roasted red bell pepper $2.49
vegan cream cheese $2.99
red onion $1.13
whole-grain bread $1.98
romaine lettuce $3.49