The chickpea, ladies and gentlemen, making yet another appearance. They’re just so bloody versatile! Yesterday I made cookies with them, last week hummus, today falafel.

Where I come from, falafel are fried in oil (where I come from just about everything is fried in oil!) but here at Two Kitchens we’re about healthy, nutritious food and Raine and I often take traditional recipes and try to make them healthier so these are baked instead of fried and have no grains or animal produce in them, they are fully plant-based. Here’s how:

Ingredients

2x 400g tins chickpeas
2 small carrots
1 onion
A handful of coriander, chopped finely
A handful of parsley, chopped finely
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp Himalayan salt
Some pepper
1 tsp olive oil

Method

Preheat your oven to 200 and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Drain the chickpeas in a colander and rinse with cold water. Then pat dry with a paper towel to remove excess liquid and leave there to drain for a minute.

Peel the carrots and onion and put them in the food processor with the chopping blade or on a chopping setting to get them chopped up nice and small, very quickly. It shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds. Scoop it all out into a bowl and leave to the side for a moment.

Put the chickpeas in your food processor (you don’t need to clean it of the carrot and onion) and blend until smooth but not for too long as you don’t want to make hummus.

Once blended add the grated carrot and onion back in, along with the rest of the ingredients and pulse to combine. Alternatively you can remove all of it from the food processor and mix in a bowl.

Once combined, wet your hands slightly and shape into balls or flatten them for falafel that fit nicely into pitta bread. I’ve done both in the picture below so you can see.

Once all balls are on the baking tray, put them in the oven for 20-30 minutes until they are nicely golden but not burning. You can turn them over half way.

Serve straight away, either in pitta with salad and hummus or on a plate along with other plant-based goodies. I served it for dinner with roasted butternut squash, chopped avocado and homemade tahini.

I’m feeling very happy and positive today, so I’m sending that out to all of you who need the same!
Love,
Lauren