Paleo, Low Fat and Gluten Free Fall-afel

Freshly made falafel is one of the most addicting vegan recipes. It is warm, crispy, so delicious and oh so comforting. It is my go to dish I order at any Mediterranean or middle eastern restaurant. This was often my"safe" dish I ordered when I first transitioned to a vegetarian diet years ago, when I was a teenager and more of a picky eater.

If you want to impress guests at a holiday party, this dish is perfect not only because of its mesmerizing color but also its unique twist on a typical crowd pleaser. This falafel is slightly sweet, but only the tiniest bit, so don't be afraid to try it. Feel free to pair this with a whipped garlic dip, traditional tzatiziki or tahini sauce. I thought I would dare to think outside of the box and create a sweet maple sauce. I imagine the fall involves adding maple syrup to everything.......no, just me?

This dish is gluten free, paleo, vegan and low in fat, so if you know of any health nuts, then this is the dish for them! My secret to creating paleo falafel is all thanks to one super special ingredient that you might already have in your cabinet if you cook vegan dishes often.

At the time that I made this recipe I had no flours in my cabinet, as I am not really into baking at the moment (I prefer raw desserts) so I was therefore forced to be creative. The idea came to me when I realized that I already use flax meal as an egg replacement, for breading, pancakes, and other ways, so I thought to myself why not try using it in a falafel recipe. Flax meal as a replacement for flour in falafel is a nifty discovery, especially for those wanting to make falafel without flour (unless it has already been discovered which may very well be the case unbeknownst to me), so please feel free share. I also have a bag of ground chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds and coconut flakes, that can act like a flax egg by the brand Nutiva, which I am assuming could work as well. I usually use it to make paleo pancakes.

I baked the falafel but I will admit that falafel doesn't taste as crispy and comforting baked as when its fried. Baking falafel uses less oil and therefore less fat which is why I prepared mine that way, but you could fry the falafel for that traditional comfort food feeling. No I am definitely not afraid of fattening or fried foods, I mean look at my blog name, but I need to have some healthy recipes to fall back on this time of the year so I don't compensate my fitness progress. Yes I have been sticking to my 2016 New Year's resolution fitness plan the entire year and I am proud of myself! Only one more month to go!

Fall-afel

--- Ingredients ---

2 cups of cooked garbanzo beans

1 tsp curry

1&1/2 tBsps fresh turmeric root

1&1/2 tBsps fresh ginger root

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tBsps melted coconut oil

4 tBsps ground flaxseed or flax meal

---

Rosemary Rice

--- Ingredients ---

2 cups brown rice

2 tsps dried rosemary

4 cups water

Step 1 ----

Start to preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the skin from the ginger and turmeric root. Then add all of the ingredients, except the flax meal into a food processor and pulse for 15 seconds. If needed, open the machine and use a spoon to move the ingredients around and pulse again until the consistency is in tiny pieces like the picture above.

Step 2 ---

Pour the mixture into a bowl and then mix the flaxseed in with the mixture using your hands to guarantee the flax meal is evenly distributed. Let this mixture sit in the refrigerator for one hour. I have seen recipes online that list you need to cover the bowl of the mixture while it is refrigerated, but I did not cover mine, and my falafel balls turned out fine, so you don't need to either.

Step 3 ---

Once the mixture has set, form small ball shapes in your hand and place them 1 inch apart on baking pans greased with the coconut oil. You can use 1-2 tBsps of oil per pan. If you have large baking pans, you might only need one pan to cook all of the balls. So the tricky part of this recipe is since these are paleo balls that use flax meal and not flour, they don't stay together as easily as if you were to use flour. I used an ice cream scooper to help me create nice dense balls. Make sure the balls are pushed together very well and are really dense, so they do not fall apart as they are cooking in the oven. I created 20 medium sized balls, which measures to about 1 & 1/2 tablespoons of the mix per ball. My balls took 10 minutes on each side to get a light crisp, but feel free to cook longer for a crispier outside.

Step 4 ---

As the balls are cooking, you can start to cook the rice (you can start to cook the rice earlier, but I started at this point). Rosemary rice is one of my favorite go to carbs that pairs well with so many dishes and it works amazingly well here. First add the water, rice and rosemary into a covered pot to cook on high heat for 7 minutes until the water starts to boil. Then mix the rice around and let simmer on a low heat uncovered for 20 minutes.

Maple Tahini Sauce

--- Ingredients ---

5 tBsps maple syrup

3 tBsps tahini

Step 1 ---

You can make however much of this sauce you like and keep in mind that the ratio of the tahini to syrup will vary depending on how oily your tahini is (tahini at the top of the container tends to be more oily than tahini sitting at the bottom, just like any container of nut butter). This is different than a typical savory tahini sauce so I suggest tasting a tiny batch of this and if you don't like it for the falafel then you are always free to stick to a traditional savory tahini sauce.

Final Step ---

Arrange the rice, falafel and sauce however you like, but I would suggest leaving the side in a dish on the side instead of pouring it over all of the balls in case some people like plain falafel with no tahini sauce. The way I plated the rice was I pressed it into a small bowl and then flipped the bowl over onto another plate. If this does not make sense then look for videos online of how to do this, such as a YouTube video.