Crockpot Falafels

Falafels, yay! Fun to say and fun to eat! This traditional Middle Eastern fast food is something I love. What I don’t love, however, is making my whole house smell like a grease pit and getting splotches of hot oil everywhere while frying them. Enter: the crockpot. Yes, the crockpot.

This recipe is compliments of Stephanie at A Year of Crockpotting, a blog devoted to…well, a year of crockpotting. She’s done some amazing things in the crockpot so far, so I recommend you take a peek at her blog! I added a pinch more salt and almost doubled the cayenne as Stephanie suggested, and they were just perfect.

I highly recommend this tzatziki recipe, by the way, as long as we’re enjoying falafels (I like to go all Greek on mine). My favorite way to eat them is to pile the falafels on a pita with lettuce, tzatziki, tomato, feta, and onion. Mmmmmmmm. Hubs and I feasted on these when they were made, and I’m not ashamed to say I’ll be making them again and again.

Crockpot Falafels

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz.) can garbanzo beans
1/2 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. dried parsley (or 2-3 Tbsp. fresh flat-leaf parsley)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 egg
1 tsp.-ish kosher salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 to 3/4 c. bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Drain garbanzo beans. Dump them into a mixing bowl and smash them with a fork. Set aside.

Get out your blender or food processor. Blend together all of the spices, the onion, the garlic, the egg, and the lemon juice.

Pour on top of your smashed garbanzo beans. Use your fork to mix together, and add the breadcrumbs slowly until the mixture is wet and sticky but can be formed into balls nicely (~3/4 c.).

Pour 2 Tbsp. of olive oil into the bottom of your crockpot stoneware insert.

Form squished golf-ball sized patties of falafel. Dip each side into the olive oil and then nestle into your crockpot. It's okay if they overlap or are on top of each other.

Cook on high for 2-5 hours. Ours cooked on high for 3.5 hours--you will know that the falafels are done when they turn brownish-golden. **Stephanie’s note: “You can flip them halfway through the cooking time if you feel like it, but they will brown on top even without flipping. (I know. I don't get it either.)”. Neither do I, Stephanie. It’s awesome yet unnerving.

And there you go, all done! Nosh as you usually do.

Ting Town Barbeque Beef Sandwiches

I have a new idea. I love my new house, and of course want to work on it constantly. But I also love my blog, and miss my dear readers, and I miss home-cooked meals too, darn it. Enough with the frozen pizzas and take out meals. Then inspiration hit: why not break out the crockpot? My auntie got us a shiny new one for a wedding gift that I hardly ever put to use, and besides: this way I can cook, and even bake, but don't have to be standing there while it's going on. Genius! I love you, inventor of the Crockpot! And off I went, to harvest several recipes. You'll be seeing a lot of them in the coming days :)

This first one comes from allrecipes.com, and is an original recipe from a popular (now closed) drive-in restaurant in Minnesota. Hubs and I popped all the ingredients in the crockpot, dashed off to the new house to get to work, and headed back to the apartment several hours later. And there was our dinner: beef sandwiches that tasted like we've been standing over the slow roaster basting the beef all day, along with chips and some pasta salad. A perfect Sunday summer meal.

The meat gets so tender, it was falling apart after 3 hours so there was no need to pull it out and shred, just give the crockpot a good couple of stirs. I rather liked the flavor, too: tangy, and not too BBQ-sauce-tasting (which really kills me in some recipes). The sauce thickened up nicely, although it wasn't as spicy as I would have liked, but I can fix that next time I make it.

All in all a great sandwich recipe, which is nice for those with little time but need to whip up dinner. And the original recipe feeds an army: I halved the recipe below, and even then: it provided many lunches and 2 dinners. A lovely thing for those who are too busy to cook!

Ting Town Barbeque Beef Sandwiches

(from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
3 stalks celery, sliced thin
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. ketchup
1 c. barbeque sauce
1 Tbsp. prepared yellow mustard
1 c. beer
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar, packed
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
4 lbs. boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed of fat
16 hamburger buns, split

To make the sauce, combine the celery, onion, garlic, ketchup, barbeque sauce, mustard, beer, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, chili powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl; stir until well blended.

Place the chuck roast in a slow cooker. Pour the sauce evenly over the meat. Cover and cook the roast on HIGH for 3 hours. Reduce heat to LOW, and continue cooking until very tender, about 4 hours more.

About 1/2 hour before serving, remove the chuck roast from the slow cooker and shred the meat with a large fork. Return the meat to the slow cooker, and cook uncovered so the sauce thickens, on LOW for 20 minutes.

To serve, dip the flat sides of hamburger buns into the sauce and top with meat.