Receta (Raw) Falafels!
Snow Day! Yesterday I woke up at 5 am to get up to go to spin and looked out the window. It was clear I WAS NOT going anywhere. The streets were not even close to being plowed and the snow was still coming down. I turned on the news and saw that, of course, every other school district besides NYC was closed. I tried to go back to sleep but I was stressing over if I would call out or not (I live so close to school, but it was SO bad out). Finally at 5:35 my friend saved the day and texted me, “no school” so I was able to go back to sleep until 7 because I can’t sleep physically sleep later than that for awhile.
I love snow days because they are an excuse to do nothing. Last snow day I made it to the gym, but it wasn’t this bad this fast. I knew I was staying in all day so I set up camp on the couch. Eventually I did do a Rodney Lee Power Yoga dvd, which was okay. I found it more of a relaxing, stretching yoga than a heart pumping workout. Again, I am so new to this yoga thing, but I did like it. It really made me stretch and I can definitely feel it today. Also I did find time to do some cleaning so we don’t have to do it over the weekend. I was pretty excited I didn’t have to make lunch either because I had packed it for school.
I did add some extra goat cheese and finished up my flatbread with it.
After sitting and catching up on blogs and reading new blogs (yes! I love finding new ones!) I decided to cook and bake some things. Like I’ve said before we are trying to save every penny we can for our Costa Rican vacation, so we are trying to not eat out until we go away. After sitting down to make a budget we realized we were spending $100 on food for the week and then $150-200 over the entire weekend eating out. So we canned eating out as much as we can (without being anti-social) and started saving. We can’t believe how much money we HAVEN’T spent, since I’ve stopped shopping and we’ve stopped eating out. It’s a huge reality check and something we should probably be better at after our vacation is over.
Next week we need to buy more food than last week, because our fridge is bare. (Mind the Jell-O, which doesn’t count because I don’t eat it anymore but I haven’t thrown it away yet.)
EMP-TY. Our fridge almost NEVER looks this bare. How sad it that??
So after checking the blog world, I thought about what I could actually make with nothing in the fridge. I came up with:
So when I was done I ended up with the following:
This soup.
Yum.
and my favorite…in cookie form too.
For dinner last night we had the lentil soup and the falafels. (Danny also had leftover pizza, which I am SO sick of even though I had to have a bite anyway!) The falafels came out unbelievable. I wasn’t sure how Danny would or if he would like them but he loved them! I had to make a couple of small changes to the original recipe..but here it is!
Sunflower seeds ground up into a flour in the floor processor. (That’s garlic in the corner)
After all the ingredients were in the bowl: onion, garlic, flax seeds,
sunflower seed flower, white beans, parsley.
Mixed together.
Put into balls.
Over spaghetti squash and leftover veges.
Falafels the (almost) raw way:
Ingredients:
- 1 can cannelloni beans (drained and rinsed well)
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup soaked flax seeds
- 1 T dried parsley
- 2 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 3 tsp cumin
- a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper to taste
1. Soak 1/2 cup flax seeds in a 1/2 cup of water. Let sit for about 1-2 hours.
2. Put sunflower seeds in food processor and ground up into a flour consistency. Place into a large bowl.
3. Put onion and garlic into food processor and also place into bowl.
4. Do the same with the cannelloni beans.
5. Add remaining ingredients to bowl (flax seeds, parsley, olive oil, cumin, sea salt, pepper)
6. Mix it up well.
7. Form into balls on a non-stick sheet.
8. *Here is where you can make it raw or not. I was in a rush, so I cooked these for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (I flipped them halfway through.) You can also dehydrate them for beginning at 140 degrees for 1 hour and then
reducing heat to 116 for 4 to 6 hours. Or you can put them in your 170 degree oven with the door cracked for that amount of time.
I wanted these for dinner, so I dropped the raw part of the recipe. They were SO good and a great protein and healthy fats source. They would be great in a pita or over a salad or over spiralized squash!
I don’t have many plans this weekend, but I am celebrating a friend’s birthday at a Haiti fundraiser. I cannot wait to get outside because I have cabin fever and I’m tired of sitting!!
(Happy Birthday Jo!) What are your plans for the weekend?
dessert,
soup,
vegan,
vegetables