EASY Falafel Recipe

If you're trying to:
a) eat less meat
b) eat more chickpeas
c) eat delicious food

... this recipe is for you.

Falafels are chickpea patties filled with flavourful ingredients. They're like a meatless burger-slider. You can dip them in your favourite hummus or fill a whole wheat pita with them plus some pickled veggies and plain yogurt or even put them on a slider bun and eat them like a burger.

If you don't have a food processor or blender you could use a hand-stick blender but you may have to add a little extra liquid to get it to work, and then add extra flour to thicken it back up. If you don't have anything to blend, just mash the chickpeas up with the back of a fork and make sure to mince the onion and garlic really fine.

Amy's "Kids-Love-Em" Falafels

2 cans chickpeas, drained
1/2 medium white onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
handful fresh parsley, chopped
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1 tsp salt, cumin, each
2 T whole wheat (or other) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
oil, for frying


1. Blend up all of the ingredients except for the oil. (See note above if you don't have the right equipment.)
2. Preheat a skillet or pan, to medium, with a drizzle of oil.
3. Form into small patties (about 3 Tablespoons each) by rolling in a ball then flattening.
4. Fry/grill on each side until golden, about 4 minutes per side.
-- If you would rather bake them, this can work too. Place patties on a lined baking tray and bake at 375 until golden (maybe 12 minutes).

It's Burger Season... Veggie Burger Season?

Just around the time this unseasonably nice weather hit Ontario the "burger" section of the grocery store seemed to be strangely bare. My first thought was that everyone was firing up their BBQs at the same time and the purchaser didn't plan for that much demand, but no - Ontario was the victim of yet another beef recall. 

I can't say I'm a firm vegetarian. For me if meat is humanely-raised and -slaughtered and is fed proper foods, I am okay to eat it in moderation. That's why I have an order for a certified organic, grass-fed 1/2 cow coming in next week (hurray!) But for those backyard parties that you're not too sure about or if invites tell you to BYOM (bring your own meat), I'd recommend keeping a box of veggie burgers in the freezer.

Recently I tried Sol Cuisine's original vegetarian burger. The stats are jaw-dropping: gluten/wheat free, vegan, low fat, 12 grams of protein, only 100 calories, lots of fiber/calcium/iron, kosher, halal... the list goes in. In fact look at these ingredients:

Filtered Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate, Onion, Modified Cellulose, Tomato Powder, Sea Salt, Garlic, Spices, Caramel Colour.

Everything is verified to be non-GMO. Very impressive.

For the group of us that dug into the tasting (my semi-vegetarian sister, my strict-paleo/whole-foods sister, my meat-loving former-chef husband, and myself) we found with a little creative condiment-adding, the burger was pretty good. Perhaps not as juicy and "meaty" as real beef, but an honest substitute and easily the type of thing you can add ketchup or mayo to for your liking (or homemade tomato jam! or vegenaise!) I look forward to trying more of Sol Cuisine's products in the future.

As it continues to get hotter, I definitely recommend branching out and giving vegetarian burgers a try. Because - hey - you can't get mad cow disease from vegetables. ... can you?

LaraBars!

Sometimes people looking for nutrition advice ask me: What is your go to packaged snack? My answer is simple. Larabars!

If you have never heard of Larabars before I am very pleased to be the one to tell you about them.

Here is the first and probably only thing you need to know about Larabars: Their ingredients list is plain English and features less than six ingredients per bar that are entirely fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds or chocolate chips. This is the kind of food label that makes a granola like me very happy. Because they use such minimal and natural ingredients, they are certified kosher, vegan and gluten free.

Oh, and there's something else I should mention: the flavours. Here are a few of my personal favourites:

• Pecan pie
• Peanut butter cookie
• Banana bread 
• Cashew cookie
• Coconut cream pie
• Chocolate chip cookie dough

The US even has flavours like Cappuccino and Ginger Snap. Mmmm, get me on a bridge to the States. (Incidentally, I actually do often see great prices for full cases of Larabars in the States - check Target next time you're there.)

Larabars are a great alternative to the high-sugar, high-calorie processed bars on the market today. Most "granola bars" and "protein bars" are not what I would consider healthy. They contain either white sugar, corn syrup or artificial sweeteners - not my idea of happiness. But Larabars have only real ingredients, no added sugars or fat. Because they use pureed dates as a main ingredient they give you sustainable energy and tons of vitamins and minerals. They are healthy as heck, but still taste amazing - the apple pie flavour is loaded with walnuts, raisins and cinnamon. Oh so good. You can grab one for a snack on the go, a pick me up during class, or for a long evening bike ride. They keep well so they're awesome to store at home for kids lunches, or bring along to a camping trip.

And now you know my not-secret-at-all snack food.