Cauliflower Falafel

This truly needs no introduction.

No better way to end this Mediterranean week.

Cauliflower really wins the prize here. It does the job. I was super surprised at how well this actually turned out. And man, did it hit that falafel craving spot.

The end.

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Cauliflower Falafel

guided by this recipe and this one

Ingredients:

2 cups cauliflower, riced to the size of couscous

1 small onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup parsley, finely chopped

1 ½ tablespoons almond flour

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

2 eggs, beaten

oil, for frying

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix cauliflower, onion, garlic, parsley, almond flour, spices, and eggs together until well combined.

Cover and refrigerate for approximately 30 minutes. (Don’t skip this step, it helps to keep them together.)

Once the falafel mix has chilled long enough, heat up a small saucepan with approximately 2 inches of oil.

The cauliflower falafel mix will have let out a lot of liquid. Don’t worry.

When the oil is ready, scoop a couple tablespoons worth of falafel mix into your hand and shape it to about the size of a golf ball. While you are shaping it, squeeze as much liquid as you can out of the ball you are forming.

A few at a time, place the falafels in the hot oil.

Gently turn them over once they have begun to turn a deep brown color on one side. Remove them once both sides are a deep golden brown. Lay them to drain on a paper towel covered plate.

Yield: about 10 golf ball sized falafels

Serve with Spicy Delicata Hummus (if you’d like!)

Spicy Delicata Hummus

I promised you hummus yesterday.

I give you hummus.

Late. But better late than never.

How convenient that during my mediterranean craving craze I stumble across a recipe for squash hummus on my ever-favorite website: Food52.

I had stumbled across other chickpea-less recipes a long time ago, but I remember them calling for zucchini and that just always seemed to me a possibly very watery alternative.

Using hard squash though, I could see how that would work!

It did not disappoint. I switched up a few things here and there to my tastes, but it’s a pretty PERFECT alternative to traditional hummus. Depending on the flavoring, people won’t even know the difference. (Tested on real live co-workers!)

a revelation

Can we just talk for a moment about roasted garlic. I mean, how have I not been doing this...forever. I've heard about it, and I may have actually encountered it that one time when I lived with a chef...but I've decided that it now needs to be something I do on a weekly basis.

Goodness, would you look at that?

Tomorrow, I’ll give you something to schmear it on.

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Spicy Delicata Hummus

adapted slightly from this recipe at Food52

Ingredients:

2 pounds delicata squash (2 to 4 squash depending on the size)

1 head garlic (intact)

¼ olive oil plus more for roasting squash and garlic

overflowing ¼ cup tahini

1 chipotle pepper (and a dash of the sauce in the can if so desired)

squeeze of half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Slice your squash in half and scrape out the seeds. Drizzle the insides of the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place the squash cut side down on a sheet pan and place oven. Roast for approximately one hour or until squash is soft when pierced with a fork.

At the same time you are roasting the squash, slice off about the top ¼ inch of a head of garlic. Grab a piece of aluminum foil and place your head of garlic in the middle. Drizzle the exposed garlic cloves with a bit of olive oil and then wrap up the head in the foil and place in the oven to roast until soft when pierced with a fork. The cloves should look caramelized. This will also take approximately one hour.

Once you’ve removed the squash and garlic from the oven, allow them to sit until they’re cool enough to handle.

Using a blender or food processor, scoop the roasted squash out of it’s skin directly into the blender cup or processor vessel (I used my nutribullet to great success.) Next, squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins as well and into the vessel. You should be able to just pinch the bottom and they’ll sort of ooze out.

Add the remaining ingredients, and then blitz until everything is fully combined. Scrape out into a bowl. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

Serve with whatever you please! I snuck some warmed pita, and also schmeared it all over cauliflower falafels.

Makes about 2 cups

Cauliflower Tabbouleh

And so I declare this Mediterranean week here in the sizzle & sass kitchen!

It hit me like a ton of bricks about three weeks ago. I could think of nothing else but warm pita, falafels, tabbouleh, and hummus for straight up days. Conveniently this craving struck during the high holidays, meaning, that the Mediterranean place near my job was closed in observance several times.

It got me thinking though as I was finally inhaling still hot from the fryer falafels one day that hmm, I wonder if I could paleo-fy these? Oh and maybe hummus!….AND MAYBE TABBOULEH!

Can we just straight talk for a second? I just want to say that I use paleo as a framework for how I eat day to day. I am not so strict about eating that way 100% of the time. One of the best parts for me has been expanding how I think about food and the way it can be used. It helps me get creative! I'm actually working on re-writing my about me to reflect these thoughts. The "buzzwords" in there have always killed me a little bit. So, anyways, while I am pretty positive some chickpeas once in a while ain’t gonna kill me, having the revelation (which I’m sure is not so original) that cauliflower riced to couscous size could work as chickpeas. I mean come on! I had to try it.

So for the people that do follow strict paleo for whatever reasons and are missing dearly those crunchy, herby, lovely balls of chickpeas, and smooth yummy hummus and refreshingly delicious tabbouleh…I did my best to find applicable substitutions, and I have filed these recipes under SUCCESS.

Today I give you tabbouleh! Hummus and falafels will be posted later this week.

One note about this tabbouleh. Mine looks a teensy bit on the brown side.

You see, what had happened was…

Listen, I don’t think you will have half as many things going on in your oven as I did the day I made this. So you probably won’t be switching pans around to different places in oven and you probably won’t stupidly place your roasting riced cauliflower on the very bottom of the oven and then shut the door and then discover it about five minutes too late when you go to switch things around again.

You will roast this until it's just perfectly tender and just a smidgen toasty on the edges.

Got it? Great.

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Cauliflower Tabbouleh

2 cups of cauliflower, riced in a food processor (about the size of couscous)

1 cup of diced tomatoes

½ cup of parsley, finely chopped

½ cup of mint, finely chopped

approximately ¼ cup of olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spread your riced cauliflower on the pan.

Roast in oven until tender and slightly toasty on the edges, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Place in bowl and let cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, add the tomatoes and herbs to the bowl and then dress with olive oil and lemon juice and add seasoning, stir to combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Tabbouleh is one of the those feel it out type of salads. My mother’s ratio is more bulgar wheat to herbs and then she sorta continues to taste it and add in the oil, lemon, and salt and pepper until it tastes right. This is essentially her recipe with the bulgar switched out for cauliflower.