Baked Falafel

I've gone a bit chickpea crazy lately, made a big batch of them and have been using them to make the chickpea salad listed below, as well as to try my hand at homemade falafel. I don't know why I never bothered making falafel from scratch before, since it's one of my favorite foods, but anyways, now that I have, I will never go back to the boxed kind again! I used this recipe (which includes a tahini sauce) and substituted chickpea flour for the whole wheat flour, and unsweetened soy yogurt for the yogurt in the sauce. I had some doubt about baking these, since deep-frying is such an integral part of making falafel, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The patties I made stuck together so much better than any sort of fried falafel I've ever made before, and they made for a nice non-crumbly finger food. The tahini sauce was alright, but as a vegan I've gotten used to having hummus with my falafel and I think I prefer it that way. I will definitely be making these again and again.

And I almost forgot, if you haven't made or tried cilantro sauce on falafel before, you should! Just blend together a bunch of cilantro, some garlic, a hot green pepper (optional), a squeeze of lemon juice and some oil in a food processor, and drizzle it onto your falafel. Play with your own measurements, I've never measured when making it and it's pretty flexible.