Build Your Own Falafel!

Most Friday nights, my friend and I get together to COOK, and although she is a member of the International Chili Society and a die-hard carnivore, she glady comes to my kitchen and we cook VEGAN food!  Each Friday, we usually pick a cuisine such as Mexican, Indian, Italian, BUT our all time, common ground is: THE HUMBLE FALAFEL

If you've never had the honnor of eating one of these delicious Middle Eastern treats, falafels are fried balls or patties of spiced chickpeas, wrapped in a pita pocket or flat bread, and served with a variety of condiments or dipping sauces.  When I make falafel from scratch, I use THIS traditional recipe from Tyler Florence. Unfortunately, you DO need to plan ahead with this one, because it involves soaking dried chickpeas overnight. This week, we decided way too late for that recipe, so I had to resort to the box:

For a box, this stuff is NOT BAD...  I do add a little fresh garlic, chopped scallion and fresh cilantro to spruce it up a bit, but overall, (in a pinch), I like it!

Now for the toppings!  We set ours up like a "make your own" falafel bar:  Romaine lettuce, sliced tomato, thinly sliced red onion, roasted red pepper strips.  Two kinds of homemade hummus:  Garlic and scallion, and then a spicy red pepper and jalapeno (recipes tomorrow)!  For an added cool touch, I mixed some chopped cilantro and scallion into my basic tofu sour cream recipe.  And for the wraps, we had whole wheat pitas and lavash flat bread!