Falafel Fail

Last night I had my family over for dinner and I decided to do a vegetarian style Greek dinner.  The menu was falafel sandwich with hummus and salad.  I used this recipe for a greek yogurt dressing for the salad, which I thought was very good.  The hint of fresh mint was a very nice touch.  For the hummus I used my usual recipe which I think is fairly standard and is usually a hit.  But, when it came to the falafel sandwiches, they were …. well, just okay.  And okay is fine, but usually when I invite people, especially family, over for dinner I hope for better.

For one, I baked the falafel not wanting to deal with the mess of frying.  I suppose that may have been the bigger of my mistakes.  But, I used this recipe and just found it to be a bit lacking.  In addition, I pulled another recipe for the tahini sauce and it was simply too overpowering.  It was very thick unlike the tahini sauce I am accustomed to seeing in my local Greek restaurant.  I was almost wondering what would have happened had I inverted the quantities of tahini and lemon juice.

At any rate, everyone ate their meal with no complaints and said that everything was good.  But, I know it could have been better.   So, my questions for you … has anyone got a good falafel recipe?  I love falafel and definitely want to try again.  Also, do I have to fry it to get the real deal at home?  What about a good tahini sauce?

Green lentils and sausage

Cooked green lentils (photo by Maggie Hoffman) when you add the oil they'll glisten scrunptiously, the sausage is icing on the cake ;)

This recipe is NOT Vegan, except Vegans can easily adapt it by removing the sausage and adding a little more oil and salt.This is simpler than the public as imagined by a politician, and tastier than even you could imagine (just use plenty of good oil and real ground or flaky salt added just before eating)

  • Green lentils 1/2 cup per person (boiled gently till just soft)
  • Splash or three of nice olive oil
  • Several grinds of sea salt
  • a little thinly sliced sausage (Chorizo is good, but I prefer the thin ones that taste a bit like salami)

Serve with mashed potatoes.

For myself I often leave the sausage out, but it used to help tame the family carnivores ;) and does add a nice contrast.

Carrot and Cashew Soup

Nearly Vegan Carrot and Cashew Soup

Heather’s competition recipe (from Alison Holst)

  • 500g carrots
  • 2 small onions
  • Oil
  • 1 Tbsp Curry powder and some cumin seeds
  • 3 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 cup toasted cashews

Chop onions and begin to cook in the saucepan with the oil (soften rather than caramelise them), add curry powder and cumin. Then chop and add carrots, add the stock and simmer till the carrots are tender. In a blender process the toasted cashews to the consistency of ground almonds (can be toasted under a grill with 1/2tsp oil). [Or if you are Tim just add them before the final few wizzes in the food processor.] Drain cooked carrots and onion and put into blender with ground nuts. Process adding stock as required to get the desired consistency.[Again I just slopped the lot into the food processor, and added the nuts - see above - just before finishing, to keep a bit of crunch.]

Taste & adjust seasoning. Reheat to serve.

Experience (the Voice of): Tasty, filling and robust! Yum, this will certainly be added to the staple soups for something quick, easy, tasty and filling for when we have a crowd for lunch. I’m going to experiment a bit more, next time the Cumin will definitely be ground not seeds (they went all fibrous when processed :( and I’ll reduce the curry powder a bit further and add Coriander leaves as garnish instead of the Yogurt in the photo making it really Vegan again :)

BTW: If you try a competition recipe and like it please either say so in the comments on this blog post, or click the “Like on Facebook” button, that way I can factor your preferences into the result. Voting more than once will only count as one, even for your own entry ;)

Mixed grain and seed bread

Bread of both kinds, though the "flatbreads" rose so much this time they are almost mini-loaves ;)

Several of the competition recipes need bread to accompany the main dish, and even more fine bean and lentil recipes do, so here’s what I usually do for a tasty fairly quick bread.

Put into the breadmaker (in roughly this order):

  • a cup or two of warm water (if you are not Vegan you will get softer bread adding an egg to the water or substituting milk for the water)
  • a Tbsp of dried yeast (the fancy mixes work even better)
  • a Tbsp of sugar
  • 1-2 cups of wholemeal flour
  • 1-2 cups of plain (strong = breadmaking = hi-grade) flour
  • some (1/4-1/2 cup?) flax seed (Linseed) to add fibre, and vitamins and minerals, and above all taste
  • 1/4 cup gluten flour
  • tsp salt

Start the breadmaker on the dough setting, unless you are more practiced than I you will need to adjust the flour and water till the dough seems roughly right (not stickly and sloppy, but not too hard and crumbly either).

Meanwhile put in a covered dish:

  • 1 cup mixed kibbled grain – today I am using kibbled wheat and rye flakes (Isn’t “kibbled” a nice olde worlde word? But I could not get kibbled rye at the supermarket and was not near the bin-inn…)
  • 1 cup boiling water

When the dough is risen switch off at the mains, add the soaked kibbled grains, and switch on again. For really solid and tasty add 1/2 cup seeds (pumpkin, sunflower…). At this stage you may need to add more flour, it depends how dry your soaked grains are…

When kneaded either:

  • make flatbread – just pull off tennis ball (or a bit smaller) lumps and roll or pat into a flat “loaf”. Leave to rise and then either bake (200C), grill or BBQ sloshing oil and sprinkling with salt makes them even nicer :)
  • make country focaccia, roll into French Stick like sausages. Leave to rise and spread. Bake (200C) till then give a nice solid tump when you tap them.

“Leave to rise” depends on the heat, phases of the moon, how much of a hurry you are in (bread dough before it is ready to cook can sense hungry children and rises more slowly in their presence) but an hour in the airing cupboard or in the oven on  50C is often enough. It should at least double in size.

NB: brushing the top with oil, or milk, or egg, or even water really helps the crust, sprinkling with salt and seeds adds interest too. You can also add herbs, rosemary is great, but add them late in the final mix even after the kibbled grains.

Pot of beans & judging the competition

Not my beans, look somethinglikes photo from La.blasco

I have not started on trying out the competition recipes, there was too much food around that needed using up this week. I won’t be over the weekend as I’ll be in Tauranga and want easy meals (see below), but plan to next week. This means there is still time to ask your friends for their best Vegan maincourse or lunch (i.e. substantial but portable) recipes…

Beans with Preserved Lemons

So as to have a couple of quick easy meals for the weekend, and a tasty meal last night I did a big pot of those young greenish (but dried) beans in the slow cooker yesterday. The ones that are like Flageolet Beans, but not from the Harricot but perhaps Fava… [BTW the slow cooker is great for beans, but NOT the red ones, as they need a good fast boil for some of their cooking time to remove poisons :( ]

Just put:

  • Some chopped onions and garlic (less than the onions ;) but plenty I used six cloves)
  • Bay leaves/Thyme/Rosemary
  • Beans

In the pot and more than cover with vege stock (my second batch of Nathan’s free stock worked fine with just the stalk ends of celery and other peelings and wastage including onion and garlic skins) the exact quantity is difficult as different beans soak up different quantities. (BTW in the slow cooker all day there is no need to pre-soak the beans.) The ideal is if you can look in on them at lunch time to maybe add more stock.

Near the end of cooking add some preserved lemons and limes. In NZ now is the time to set up a shelf of jars, as limes are as cheap as they get, and they do make the lemons taste even better :) The preserving somehow mellows the flavour and they go brilliantly with the beans adding interest to the dish. The Velveteen Rabbi called them “sunshine in a jar” – I can’t beat that ;)

Season and if need be thicken the sauce with a little maize meal/cornflour.

Vegan recipe competition

If you are, or are friends with, a Vegan (or just like trying different recipes) and have a good recipe that is:

  • tasty
  • nourishing
  • Vegan
  • for a lunch or savoury main dish
  • one you have tried
  • not needing hours of work (hours of cooking is fine as long as it requires time not me)

Then enter it into the comments below. Tell me:

  • Quantities – approximate is fine
  • Instructions – remember I have not watched your Auntie prepare this dish ;)
  • If possible link to a photo of the end result

I will try any that sound like possibles, and give a prize to the best, any I try and like will feature here (with a link to your blog, Facebook page etc. naturally).

If I’m to start a radical change in the way I eat, I need more Vegan recipes. I have stacks of delicious meaty and/or Vegetarian recipes but to reduce my use meat etc. to just once a day I need some Vegan recipes to add to the mix. Since breakfast is Vegan already most days (delicious luxury porridge with fruits and nuts) I need light lunches and savoury mains. The competition is only for recipes you have cooked and enjoyed (please don’t just cut and paste from some website without testing it first ;) entries will remain open indefinitely but I will pick a first winner when I have six meals I plan to cook again.