Oh, man. I just looked at the cafeteria selection today and it's one of my FAVES!! It's just not something I can eat as much of as I used to. I'm not sure my Superpowers of PortionEstimation are up to this task:

Southern fried chicken
Dirty mashed potatoes with cracked pepper
Fried green tomatoes

They also have fried okra, but when they have the tomatoes I never get the okra.

So, I have a decision to make:

• Go to the cafeteria and get a nice, hearty lunch and enjoy about half of it and throw the rest away. If I do this, lunch will be my big meal of the day and I'll have soup and toast for dinner to compensate.
  
• Go to the cafeteria and get something else and use "Willpower" to make a different selection than what I really want.
  
• Go somewhere else for lunch.
  
• Eat out of my emergency drawer (granola bars, tuna fish, protein powder, Chef Boy R Dee)

/sigh

decisions, decisions....

Finally - someone who might know - What are dirty mashed potatoes??

Usually "dirty" mashed potatoes are made with unpeeled potatoes. The bits of skin in the resulting dish give it a less-than-white look. (also a cool texture, and lots more vitamins and fiber)

I did a Google search on the term, just for grins. Emeril's recipe uses chicken livers and peeled potatoes. I guess the liver gives it that "dirty" look.

Ah! that would make sense.

What did you decide to eat? I would not have been able to choose - but I think I would have gone with the cafe and only eating half.

I would go some where else for lunch. LOL, or at least eat the tunafish.

But I would recommend to stay away from the cafeteria altogether. Every time I went to the cafeteria with the intention of getting something healthy, I would always end up getting the meal I was trying to avoid.

Actually, I did a combo of 1 and 2. I went to the cafeteria expecting to get the meal and only eat part of it. But instead I got the vegetarian option: Portobello Mushroom stuffed with Spinach. I figure I can get fried chicken whenever I want to, but seldom does our cafeteria offer this!

The stuffing was reminiscent of creamed spinach, or spinach/artichoke mixture. It had a tangy flavor as if they'd used marinated artichokes, though I couldn't detect artichoke in it. It was very good!

Anyway, of course Fitday doesn't have it in their database, so I looked up some equivalent recipes online and borrowed their nutritional analysis.

If this sounds tasty to you, look at the following recipes:

Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Caps

http://www.healthwell.com/deliciousk...los.cfm?key=29
http://www.startribune.com/stories/438/3745536.html

Congrats on making a great choice, synger, that looks absolutely delectable!!!!