tropit

My tip...always soak beans without salt. Add the salt later, after they are soaked and mostly cooked. This will prevent hard, or tough beans.

I'm going to try to make Falafels. We didn't grow Garbanzo beans, but I have a lot of dried ones in the pantry. I can't decide if I want to try to deep fry them, or bake them in the oven. I'm going to make a batch of pita breads to go with them. Those are pretty easy. Also, some Tzatziki and fresh tomatoes to put on top.

tropit

I wonder if you can make falafels with a different kind of bean? It would have to have a firm texture to hold up.

Stitchnripper

I always boil my beans in plain water first and then spill out that water and then I also always cook whatever they are in broth and not water. If ever they are a little too hard, just cook them longer, at least that's what I do.

Bags

I hope it's okay, that I jump into this conversation. It's been a while since I've posted or logged in.

tropit, One of our favorite meals! We have used Fava beans for making Falafel. We got them from an Arabic grocery store, about an hour away from us. It worked really well.

We always have dried chickpeas on hand so, we mostly use those and soak enough of them, so we can make Hummus, too. I've never tried baking the Falafel, we always fry them.

We also make the pitas and tzitzki. If we have zucchini or eggplant, we'll slice them lengthwise and roast them to add to the falafel and if we remember in time, we'll also make Harissa.

Carol

tropit

Great ideas! Thanks for the tips. Fava beans...yummm! I don't grow them though because they're a pain to clean. I made Tzatziki to go with the pitas and falafels. I also had some roasted sweet peppers and fresh tomatoes to go with them.

Bags

Thank you and you're welcome! I wish we could grow beans like that but we're just never successful with them. If you have an Arabic market near you, definitely see if they have them.

Absolutely the roasted peppers and tomatoes! That's always on our Falafel!

Do you have a Falafel scoop? We love ours so much that we got one for each of our kids. They love Falafel, too.

For the record, I love your recipes and menu ideas and I think "good" recipe websites are a fabulous idea.

tropit

So the Falafels were a hit. After dinner, my DH sneeked in and ate up all of the extras that I had made, so he must have liked them. The pita breads were good too. Yes, we had roasted peppers and tomatoes on ours too. I didn't use a huge pan to fry the falafels in, just a small cast iron one and it worked out great, because it didn't need much oil and was easier to clean up.

Bags

That's fabulous he loved the Falafels! We call them "misery food". It's our comfort food, but we could eat so much of it that we'd be miserable.

We only fry what we'll eat for that meal otherwise we'll eat the rest of them as we're doing the dishes. We save the rest of the mix, for the next night and fry them for dinner. Not leftovers, but "encores"!

tropit

We made burritos last night using some cooked Tiger's eye beans. They had so much flavor! Really good! I still have half a batch of cooked beans left in the fridge. I say more burritos, or maybe some chili.

mac

Oh, my goodness. How awful for her. All that time, money and work all gone down the drain.

I can sort of understand that feeling. I cleaned, hulled and sliced 4 pounds of strawberries and put them in a very old, beautiful and loved bowl. Somehow my husband, in his frustration of not finding the mustard in the refrigerator and moving everything hither and thither, knocked the bowl of strawberries onto the floor. The bowl broke and the sliced strawberries went everywhere. I was in another room and just got that sinking feeling that my morning's work was all for nothing. Since the strawberries were for a potluck that day, I had to scramble to figure out what I could replace it with. The hardest part was seeing my bowl that I got as a wedding present 55 years ago broken to smithereens. Oh, well, life goes on.