Day 25: Don't believe everything you read on the internet

Tonight I was super excited to try what was promised to be the "GALAXY'S BEST FALAFEL THAT COULD END WARS AND ELIMINATE NATIONAL DEBT AND HELP BLIND CHILDREN SEE AGAIN." Ok, it was called "Better Than Restaurant Falafel," but the way she raved on about this stuff had me salivating hours before I had even bought the ingredients. Want to know how it went? Of course you do, because we all secretly enjoy the suffering of others.

Let me set the mood first...





Better Than Restaurant Falafel (serves - 2 people and 4 squirrels)

A plate full of lies.

1. Rinse and stem 4 cups of collard greens. I suggest skipping this step (and the rest of this recipe) and just building a fort out of collard green leaves in your living room. Spread out the leaves from one bundle of collard greens and you already have enough thatching for a homemade Quonset hut. Eco chic! 
2. Add collard greens, 1 can of chickpeas, 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1.5 tablespoons of tahini, 1.5 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, and "a healthy pinch of salt & pepper" to a food processor or blender. Little known fact: if you're shopping for tahini at Pick 'N Save, you can find it in the unicorn section between the pixie dust and the magic beans. All you have to do is push your cart as fast as you can toward the end cap between aisles 9 and 10.
3. Once well incorporated, transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in 3-4 tablespoons of oat flour (1 tablespoon at a time) until the mixture is thick enough to handle. They also keep the "oat flour" in aisle 9 3/4, so you can just use whole wheat or all-purpose flour.
4. Taste & adjust seasonings as needed. Then blankly wander into your living room with a look of horror on your face and say to your fiance "I'm sorry, babe... I lied. This is NOT falafel." No amount of "adjusting" will save you now, but you must press on. Maybe something magic happens once they hit the frying pan?
5. Press the mixture into 12 patties, then pan fry in a large skillet. You'll only be able to do 4 at a time, because these goo balls are impossible to flip and you'll spend half your time chasing them around the pan with your spatula. The recipe says you're supposed to "use 2 tablespoons of oil at a time" which is a pretty horribly written instruction, but I took that to mean you should use 2 tablespoons per 4 falafel..s (falafi?). This was a pretty disgusting amount of oil and I ended up actually blotting the pan to remove some of it. The patties never got crispy, just darker green and soggy. The less oil I put in, the better consistency they turned out.
6. Cook until both sides are golden brown. Don't worry, they never will be, so just pull them off the pan after about 8-10 minutes and accept the things you cannot change.
7. Serve immediately with hummus. We put them in a pita with hummus, kalamata olives, lettuce, and tomato. I did use her "MIND NUMBINGLY STELLAR YUM YUM HUM HUM" recipe (ok, it was called "My Ultimate Hummus" and it was certainly more successful than the falafel, but it still wasn't my favorite.
8. Re-read all of the recipe's comments and realize that all the "5 stars!" are coming from people who have yet to actually make the recipe, and suddenly notice all of the "did I do something wrong?"s and "this tastes nothing like falafel"s. The latter group of people clearly shares my woes. I don't believe that using whole wheat flour instead of the mythical "oat flour" would change the taste all that drastically. I followed her directions to a T otherwise. What it came down to was this: she made veggie fritters that were meant to taste like the giant leaves they were made of, yet the rest of us were expecting the mind blowing falafel we were promised. Two totally different wavelengths. 

Scott said it tasted like lemon grass, and he meant it in the literal way (citrus and lawn clippings) not the trendy smoothie bar way. Once they were buried in the pita with all the toppings, they weren't unbearable. We each ate two pitas out of desperation. With each bite, I couldn't help but think "this is what non-vegans think we eat every day" if that gives you any perspective. Scott got creative and added some tortilla chips to his pita to help get rid of the mushy texture. I over-fried the last batch in a desperate attempt to burn away the seaweed taste, but nothing helped. We had 7 patties left over and they went straight from the pan to the back yard (don't judge, that's how we compost) so I'll be curious to see if the local wildlife puts it to good use or not. As for you, loyal reader, if this still somehow sounds incredibly delicious to you, just know that I do not endorse this recipe and any disappointment you may incur is at your own risk.