Last week, my dad was saying he’d like to stop eating tuna if he could only find something better to put in his sandwiches, so I found this recipe for a Vegan “Tuna” Sandwich made with chickpeas. We both tried the recipe the same day, and we both loved it. I haven’t had a tuna sandwich in at least 20 years, and I remember not particularly liking the experience. This chickpea salad, however, was delicious.

Fishy, yet not.

I’ll definitely be making this recipe again, since it was so simple and so satisfying. Who’d have thought you could substitute chickpeas for tuna? Good to know.

The recipe made five sandwiches, so my calculator says I spent less than $1 per serving. Instead of paying $25 for five tuna sandwiches in a New York deli, which I would never do, I spent $5 to eat the same number of awesome sandwiches at home instead. So that’s $20 more for the June tally!

Does spicy food cause hiccups? I didn’t know that, being so heat-averse for so many years. Last week I made Vegetarian Tortilla Soup, and even though I substituted canned chipotles for the jalapeños, I was still a bit overwhelmed. The soup tastes good, but it’s hard to eat while hiccuping.

Hot.

It’s not particularly filling, but a large portion made a good lunch. Also worth noting is that it was still enjoyable cold, which came in handy during the hot weather last week.

Rather than dealing with leftover ingredients (half a can of beans? No, thanks), I made a double batch, which left me with five large servings of soup for a total cost of less than $5. Since a large soup of this caliber is often $6 in the city, I reckon I saved $25 by making it myself. Not a bad start to June….