Falafel Stir Fry

Falafel is one of my favorite Middle Eastern foods. However, it's usually fried and served on pita bread. To me, fried falafel tastes way better than baked but I've really been trying hard to avoid fried foods. I don't want to avoid falafel all together because of this, so I came up with some sort of falafel stir fry.

These are roughly the measurements I used, but of course it can be changed depending on what veggies you like and all that...

Ingredients:

1 c. dry falafel mix (I use Casbah)

1/2 c. cold water

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 chopped white onion

1 c. chopped broccoli

1 c. peas

1 c. chopped carrots

1/2 c. chopped zucchini

1/2 c. chopped squash

Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees

- While oven is preheating, mix falafel and water and let stand for 10 minutes. When the oven is heated and the falafel is done soaking, make 1/2" thick patties and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes.

- While falafel is cooking, add olive oil to skillet and heat on medium to medium high. When the oil is hot, add veggies (if you have any frozen veggies add these before the others and heat for a couple minutes). Sauté veggies for the remainder of the time your falafel is cooking. I only cooked them this long because I like my veggies to be crisp and not soft and soggy.

- Once falafel is a golden brown color, take out of oven and place into skillet with the veggies. Use a spatula to sort of chop up/mix the falafel into the veggies. I like to chop my falafel up pretty finely so it incorporates nicely into the mix.

- Sauté this for a few minutes and then it's ready to eat!

I really like this because it's simple and doesn't require any extra spices. The falafel already has a ton of spices in it and the veggies have a pleasant taste to them as well. I like to change this up every so often and use different veggies or different amounts of falafel. Even though it looks totally unappetizing, it's actually very filling and satisfies my falafel craving!

Too bad I'm also having a banana soft serve craving right about now. Maybe I'll make another batch this weekend :)