Most Sincerely,

The variations are endless!

An adaptation of the Chickpea Italiana recipe found in Simply Vegan.

Ingredients:

19 ounce can of chickpeas or 2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained and mashed

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/4 or to taste powdered garlic (I would prefer to use fresh, but I am out)

Tomato sauce to the consistency you desire

Olive oil for lightly coating a skillet

Bread of your liking

*Additional toppings of your choice

• Drain and mash chickpeas, I mashed mine coarsely, so they were still pretty chunky
• Put skillet on a burner set to medium high, coat lightly with oil
• Add chickpeas to skillet and toss about lightly
• Add seasoning and tomato sauce until desired consistency is reached
• Stir about until warm through

Now this part is open to  interpretation! Here's what I did:

• Take one whole wheat baguette and cut in half length wise, then slice down the middle
• Preheat oven to 375°
• *(Here is where the additional topping come in :) Lightly coat one half with vegan cream cheese
• Layer atop the vegan cream cheese veggies of your liking, on the first night we chose onion, black olives and green peppers. On the second night (pictured) it was onion, fried zucchini, and green peppers.
• Place in preheated oven for approximately 8 minutes, or until toasty goodness happens
• Remove from oven
• Add another thin layer of vegan cream cheese to the opposite face of bread
• Top with chickpea concoction
• ENJOY!

If you will notice in the above photo the trained eye might spy some lentils! This was the second night we had these sandwiches and I was out of chickpeas. There was a tad of the filling left over from the night before so I used that and mixed it with some lentils I prepared in the same way. See, I told you it was super versatile! This is a very hearty sandwich, which will be gracing our table quite frequently I would venture to say!