I don’t remember what brought on the sandwich craving, but this happens to me once in a while, and the desire for sandwiches must be satisfied. For some reason, I didn’t realize until my late 20s that I could make and enjoy a sandwich. Maybe it had something to do with how mushy vegetarian sandwiches can be (hummus, avocado, that fake chicken salad they have at the health food store). Anyway, I love a good SLT (not a real thing), so I whipped up a batch of homemade seitan for the purpose. The recipe is from a cookbook that hasn’t come out yet, but if you can find a recipe online, it’s so much better than storebought!

You know what sandwiches look like, so here's this picture instead.

The recipe made nearly three packages worth of seitan, and since those are nearly $6 around here, which I now realize is crazy, I’ve just saved $15 on the seitan, plus did I mention that it’s way better? And the savings goes to…

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

I’ll admit I’m biased toward organizations that save lives, and this humanitarian organization providing medical assistance in troubled countries does just that. Once again, $15 really doesn’t seem like enough, but who cares? It’s something.

I love a good soup, especially one that involves peanut butter, so when I found this recipe for African bean soup, I knew I wanted to try it. Initially, I was skeptical about the lack of fat and oil, but it turned out really tasty, and probably really healthy too. I left out a cup of water so it would be more stewlike…mmm.

Equal parts beans, yam, onion, tomato, red pepper.

I think I spent $8 or so for the whole pot (I got a little crazy and went all organic), which will probably be four or five servings. Considering that I spent $6.25 last week on a single bowl of soup for lunch in the city, I’ve just saved at least $20. So here’s what I’m gonna do with it:

http://www.centerforgreatapes.org/

According to my old Animal Cognition teacher, when funding and interest in ape language research diminished suddenly, all the subjects were out on the street, so a bunch of ape homes were created or expanded. This one houses mostly chimps and orangutans cast out of the entertainment industry at a young age, who will live out their days in comfort (partly due to contributions like mine). Sounds nice.

Chocolate chip cookies are the best. But which recipe is the best of the best? Twice I thought I’ve found the chocolate chip cookie recipe that could never be topped, and then another recipe comes along and blows the previous batch out of the water. Here’s the most recent winner. I really don’t see how you can beat these.

According to my calculations, this recipe cost me around $3 for two dozen cookies. Sometimes I splurge and get storebought cookies for $2.29 each, so I’ve just saved $50, right?

Ok, I guess the storebought ones are a lot bigger.

Considering their size, I guess I’ve saved more like $25. So here’s where it’s going:

http://www.unicef.org/

Have you heard of UNICEF? Maybe you know it as the United Nations Children’s Fund. If you don’t already know, take a look at what they do. Most of this stuff sounds pretty worth it to me!