Falafel and Homemade Yogurt

Excuse the absence... We've been off an a holiday adventure and I did NOT take a computer with me. For shame! But since we ate out for every meal I wouldn't have had much to post anyway. I don't do restaurant reviews. Although there was this to-to-for restaurant in DC called Skewers. It was so good we ate there twice in 5 days. Nice people, delicious food, and walking distance from our hotel...but I digress.

I'm not sure this counts as a recipe. I don't use many boxed/prepared foods, but I saw a box of falafel mix when shopping the other day and since we've all enjoyed the gyros in pita bread, I thought I'd give these a try.

I just followed the recipe on the box: Dump the falafel mix into a bowl and add 1 1/2 cups of water. They were still pretty moist after soaking 15 minutes so I might do 1 1/4 cups of water next time, to make it easier to shape the balls.

The box also had a recipe for a yogurt and cucumber sauce that was a bit different from my gyro version, so I tried it. The main differences were the addition of lemon juice, salt, and dill. I'm not crazy about dill. It always makes me think of canned green beans. I swear my mother used to add dill to canned green beans but she denies it, so I'm not sure where this flavor-memory comes from. I like my old sauce better anyway, although the lemon juice was nice. Next time I'll do my old sauce with a bit of lemon juice perhaps.

I served these with shredded lettuce and sliced cucumbers. I'll definitely do them again in the summer when I have home-grown tomatoes available to augment. I just planted 10 tomato plants so we should have plenty! This recipe reminded me that I've been remiss about making my own yogurt. I have a hard time regularly going through the amount I need to make each week to keep the cultures active, so I end up making it for a while, then slacking off and needing to buy another pint and start all over.