Baked Fava Bean Falafel

Five years ago, I was a vegetarian. It was honestly not hard at all. I lost my taste for meat. If I could live without eating animals, I would. This did cause a slight problem though: I got really skinny. Like, 100 pounds on a good day skinny. Apparently I should have researched what to eat when cutting meat out of your diet.

So to solve the problem, I went with the quick fix: eating meat again. I didn’t particularly like the taste of meat, but if it would keep me healthy, ok. Lets do it.

 

My favorite food to eat while I was a vegetarian were falafels. I could eat those for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Chickpeas are one of my favorite foods (I do have a lot of favorite food) and I put them in almost everything.

So when I was craving some falafel the other day, guess what I didn’t have in my house? So, experimenting with what I DID have lying around…

These turned out very good. And what’s better? They are baked, so they are healthier than the fried alternative. But that doesn’t make them any less tasty.

 

Ingredients:

-1/4 cup chopped onions
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-2 cups canned fava beans, drained (green broad beans)
-1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon baking soda
-1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
-1 egg, beaten

Directions:

1.   Heat a skillet on medium heat, and fry the garlic and onions until the onions are transparent, around 4 minutes. Set aside.
2.   Combine the fava beans, parsley, cumin, coriander, salt and baking powder in a food processor until coarsely pureed. Mix in the flour, egg and onion mixture. Shape into balls.
3.   Preheat the oven to 400˚F
4.   Place the falafel balls on a greased baking sheet. Bake for around 10 minutes, or until golden