I’m really trying to be a more organized, efficient wife these days. We’re on a pretty strict budget, and I want to be helpful towards that in the kitchen, so in an effort to save money on lunches I decided to try a recipe from one of the cookbooks I inherited from my aunt.

Falafel!!!!

Falafel, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with this wonderful little hamburger of the Middle East, is basically ground up chickpeas (garbanzo beans) with some spices and other flavorings that is then deep fried into oh-so-yummy goodness. It is typically served, as far as I know, inside a pita with lettuce, tomatoes, and some kind of spread. I figured we could do falafel in pita pockets with tomatoes, lettuce, and tzatziki sauce.

Incidentally, isn’t that fun to say? Tzatziki. Tzatziki. Tzatziki. It is so delicious too. Tzatziki is what mayonnaise wishes it was.

This cookbook of mine is a “healthy” cookbook that takes regular recipes and slashes the fat and calories without sacrificing taste. I’ve tried a couple other recipes and they’ve all been good. So hey, let’s give falafel a try! I figured I could make a double-batch and we’d have enough for both of us for a week. We already had everything except the chickpeas. So on our last grocery trip we loaded up a few cans of those marvelous little golden beans and I prepared to do the falafel dance.

Visions were dancing in my head of THIS:

So I made my chickpea mush in the food processor and molded it into little patties:

Heated up some oil in the cast iron skillet, and…

THIS:

Is what I got. They fell completely apart when I tried to flip them over and continued to crumble as I transferred them to the cooling rack. And they’re just…well darn it, they’re just not pretty.

Sadness. I know. Far from the beautiful golden-brown crispy heaven I had imagined. Recipe modifications are in order. Perhaps it was just using egg whites that did it. Maybe next time I’ll leave in the yolks and see what happens.

Oh well. At least they still taste good and my husband is excited about having such an exotic lunch. I figure the falafel will be just as good crumbled into bits as it would have in perfect little patties. So I’ll let them crumble how they will, and we’ll just stuff them into pita pockets that way.

But my tzatziki sauce turned out great! It did come out of the blender kind of liquidy, so I’m hoping it solidifies by tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know…