Healthy Dinner for Four, $21.97

If you look for this on Whole Foods items, you can get a good price break.

Fig's nice friend is vegan, and H. is vegetarian, and we were on a tight budget, so I got dinner tonight at Whole Foods for all four of us for under 22 bucks.

And that counts things I thought we'd need but didn't: a bottle of soy sauce for $2.69 and an extra can of beans, 89 cents.

I bought:

• 1 can pinto beans, 89 cents
• 1 can black beans, 89 cents
• 1 generous tray Asian stir-fry veggies from produce aisle, $5.21
• Freshly made guacamole, $9.40 for hefty 1.57 lb. container [Everyday Deal--save $2 per pound if you buy the economy size]
• Whole-grain tortilla chips, modest 5.5-ounce bag, $2

To this I added stuff we already had:
A red pepper for the veggie stir-fry, whole affair softened and charred in a little olive oil; some garlic, chopped and browned in a little olive oil, to which I added roughly chopped tomatoes from H.'s plant out front, the beans, rinsed, drained and mashed, chili powder, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice; shredded cheese and tangy plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream for me, Fig and H.

And we all liked it, except when Figgy charmingly said These beans taste like pee, then said she was only kidding, making a comment for comic relief. It did make me laugh. We all cleaned our plates. Plus, we have a lot of guacamole left over. And this was miles better than last Friday night, when I picked up a lousy pizza in the pouring rain and was charged $20.32 for a light, skimpy pie with very little cheese and very pricey, very scarce veggies.

Tired now. Good night.

TCOY

1. Early-morning yoga at Yoga Montclair, with grace-filled teacher Julie Harris.
2. Boot camp on beautiful day in park.
3. Walked Sug around block once.