Falafel Sandwiches and Classic Tabbouleh

Most vegans I know love falafel sandwiches. What's not to like? Fried seasoned chickpea patties with fresh ingredients in a soft pita. It's been a long time since I had a really good falafel and the last one I bought recently sucked (Maoz — it was dry and flavourless) so I put Falafel Sandwiches (page 117) on my recipe list along with Classic Tabbouleh (page 87).

Both dishes were easy to make, but I'll start with the tabbouleh. I used fine bulgur since that's all I had on hand and omitted the cucumber since I forgot to put that on this week's grocery list. The tabbouleh calls for 1/4 cup of oil but you can always reduce that if you are limiting the amount of oil in your food. I did ramp up the lemon juice though after tasting but the recipe is a good starting point, so adjust the lemon to your tastes. I do wish I had cucumbers though because it would have added some extra brightness to the salad since my tomatoes weren't great.

For the falafel sandwiches, I used canned chickpeas. My food processor is terrible so in the process of getting the onions to get chopped down along with the parsley, I ended up almost pureeing the entire mixture instead of just processing to combine. After refrigerating, I did have to add some flour to thicken everything up. Even though it was still pretty soft and sticky, they still fried up nicely. Crispy on the outside and soft and flavourful on the inside.

I served up the falafel sandwiches with hummus and tabbouleh inside the pita and a dash of hot sauce on mine. We had no tahini in the house so I had to skip that. Normally I would also throw in sliced dill pickles, but we were also out of those. The sandwiches were great and filling and SO much better (and cheaper) than my last takeout falafel.

— Ms. Veganorama

P.S. As you can probably tell, all my dinners this week are from the book with more to come. I'm a slacker and have a hard time following recipes but I wanted to make an effort to make a whole bunch of stuff from the book. Go me!

Tempeh Tantrum Burgers

Like a lot of vegans I know, I'm always on the search for a good vegan burger recipe. Not of the grainy/vegetabley/healthy variety, but the hearty, "meaty" kind which also includes tofu burgers and bean burgers. Pretty much a patty that is uniform in texture with blended ingredients. Anyhoo, when I spied the Tempeh Tantrum Burgers (page 118), I knew I had to try the recipe.

The ingredients are easy to find with tempeh being the most "exotic" ingredient in the recipe. This is a bonus for those who don't really like buying specialty items for just one recipe. The burgers were also super easy to put together. After simmering the tempeh, you just throw everything into the food processor (the cooked tempeh provided the right amount of moisture), shape and fry. They fried and browned quite nicely, BUT with any homemade vegan burger (at least those that don't use vital wheat gluten or some other form of thick binder like flour) they have a tendency to be tender and can fall apart. No biggie though as I'm sure you're all used to that. I actually doubled the recipe and put 1/2 of it in the fridge to fry up the next day. The stuff from the fridge shaped and fried better I think because the oats had a chance to absorb everything overnight.

Taste-wise, they were good but they could have used more salt and seasonings. Maybe some smoked paprika, onion and garlic powder and a few dashes of cumin. You'll want to taste the mixture after you process it and adjust the seasonings to your liking. If you don't like tempeh, don't make this. Because there aren't any strong flavours, the burgers taste like tempeh with nothing to mask that distinct tempeh taste, which you may or may not like.

Robin suggests using dijon on the burgers which I know would pair nicely, but I went with ketchup, yellow mustard and vegenaise (under the lettuce) on homemade buns with lettuce, onion and some sad looking, out of season, grocery store tomatoes.

All in all, this was a new take on a vegan burger for me and a nice change from my usual tempeh dishes. The Mr., who is really picky about tempeh, said "they were pretty good." If you like tempeh, give this a try but adjust the seasonings before you shape the patties.

— Ms. Veganorama

P.S. With this post, we have cooked through 200 recipes!