Even though I’ve only had falafel a handful of times, I’ve loved it from first bite. I arrived late for the falafel train, not trying it until about 6 years ago in Duluth, MN at a nice little café. The shape and texture reminded me of a hushpuppy, but ingredients are, of course, different with chickpea flour being the main ingredient.

That is until now. I’ve been following thugkitchen.com for a few months, thanks to a good friend turning me on to the blog. I love it…raunchy language (seriously, you probably want to sensor this from your kids) but so much fun to read and really great recipes. His July 12 post about Buffalo Falafel caught my eye and upon further inspection of the ingredients (cauliflower….huh?) I wanted to give it a whirl. For the first go around, I skipped the buffalo sauce and simply made falafel last night.

Using fresh parsley from the garden added a nice touch of green and I can’t wait to use garden cauliflower. While they baked, I threw together a tzatziki to go with the falafel. The addition of one off-the-wall ingredient (cream cheese), not seen in any tzatziki I’ve had, took the serious tang away and made it a really great sauce. If you like intense tang, leave out the cream cheese.

Tzatziki
(4-5 servings)

• 3 cups plain Greek yogurt
• 2/3 cup 1/3 less fat cream cheese
• 1/3 English cucumber, skin on, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped, fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoon chopped, fresh mint
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

You can serve your falafel inside a pita or buy some nice lavosh and tear off pieces to make your own little whatever-size-you-like sandwiches. Spread with tzatziki, add falafel and whatever other filling you like. We added thinly sliced cucumber, tomato slices, and avocado. I also imagine romaine or radish slices would be really nice here, too.