Baked Falafel

Falafel! Very good, but not always very healthy. I found a recipe for baking them, and it worked great! They were really delicious. 

Baked Falafel

1 can chickpeas
3 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup fresh parsley (we just left this out and it was fine)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1 garlic scape (what we used) or 3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper

Form into 12 slightly flattened golf-ball-sized patties and bake at 375 for 13 min, then flip and bake for another 13 min.

Before blending everything, it looked like a little terrarium in the food processor.

    

The little blobs waiting for the oven.

And the finished falafels!

Michael just ate a plateful plain (very tasty) and I wrapped mine up in a lettuce leaf with a little of the light chive-mayo spread I sometimes make. It would also be really good in a pita pocket with fresh, crisp veggies, or slathered in hummus (you know, for the true chickpea fan), or topping a fresh chopped salad.

Next time I will definitely make a double or triple batch and freeze a bunch of these little guys before baking. If you're cleaning the food processor anyway, you might as well. The only thing that stopped me from doing so this time is that our can opener was broken and even opening one can was pretty laborious.