'Tuna Salad' 2 ways

I've just worked 7 days in a row & can't believe I have a week of posts to catch up on again! I'm looking at photos from last Sunday & it's like a lifetime ago.

Last Sunday was such a beautiful sunny day that I was in the mood for salad by dinner time. Since The Vegan Table is like my bible these days, I immediately started flicking through it, looking for inspiration. I didn't get very far in when I came across the 'Better-Than-Tuna Salad'. It's a combination of flaky chickpeas, vegan mayo, capsicum, carrot, celery & walnuts. I had never eaten tuna salad before I was vegetarian so I can't compare to the cruelty-ful version, but I can say that this salad was delicious! It's also another versatile one - as long as the chickpeas & mayo are in there, I'm sure you could add & subtract ingredients to cater for what you have on hand. The salad is crunchy & creamy at the same time & also quite delicately flavoured. The mayo plays an important role - the brand I used wasn't fantastic (it was a sunflower oil one I saw in the organic grocer), so make sure you use a nice one to get the most out of this recipe. I'd recommend Kingland - it's the closest to the original version.The next night the salad was recycled because I was feeling lazy - here it is with some lettuce on corn tortillas, with a re-heated & squashed chickpea & mushroom sausage (that I cooked ages ago) on top. Of course, there's also the obligatory tomato sauce, because I'm a firm believer that it goes with everything (kind of like lemon). There was nothing particularly special about this dinner - it was just a functional meal to get the necessary nutrients in at the end of a long day.I may as well squeeze in a dessert while I'm at it. I made these fruit balls on Monday night as well I think (my memory is failing me). They're a version of these Apricot & Walnut Balls. I didn't have enough walnuts or apricots, so used about 1 cup of walnuts, almonds, cashews & brazil nuts; and 1 cup of mixed dried apricots & dates (soaked in hot water for 10mins). I threw the whole lot into the food processor with a dash of lemon juice & about 1tsp of agave nectar & processed until smooth. The mix was quite soft, which made it difficult to roll in the coconut - but they firmed up pretty well after an hour or so in the fridge.