Sweet potato falafel over salad greens #foodie friday

This is an old recipe I created (with some inspiration for others)  before I knew about my histamine intolerance so it’s not good for anyone who is dealing with that issue! Some of the spices, the lemon, and the kefir (or yogurt) are all problematic if you have a histamine intolerance.

I just looked for this recipe on my old cooking blog as I’m going to come up with a modified version for myself  because I do eat a lot of sweet potatoes and I also eat chick pea flour. So the main ingredients in the falafel is okay. The problem ingredients for me are among the spices and in the sauce. Still I remember liking this so much I thought I’d share it with everyone else who can eat all these lovely spices etc.

I got the idea for this on Joanne’s wonderful blog, Eats Well With Others. I made some changes but all credit for inspiration and virtually all of the ingredients goes to Joanne.

For the falafel:

• 3 large sweet potatoes
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 cup chickpea flour
• salt to taste

I cut the potatoes up in thirds before roasting as I like the meat to get that carmelized yumminess that happens when you cut them up. After cooking for about an hour at 400 degrees I let them cool. I then peeled them but saved the peels. Joanne says to eat the peels at this point. What I did was toss them into a food processor with the lemon juice and the cilantro and garlic. I made a paste out of all that. I’m all for eating potato skins and this worked just fine. I put the paste into the potatoes and mashed it all up with the spices and the chick pea flour. The only thing different in ingredients in this part from the original is the addition of the cayenne pepper.

Once the potatoes/chickpea flour mixture was done I simply stuck it in the refrigerator. Joanne put hers in the freezer for 20 minutes, which I imagine is so that it’s easier to roll in balls. I couldn’t get back to mine in 20 minutes so a few hours later I took them out and since it was still soft I oiled my hands each time I shaped a ball and that worked okay. I oiled a pan and then sprayed the balls with my olive oil spray. I baked them for about 20 minutes and then I broiled them for about 5 minutes. They didn’t seem to want to cook, but finally the broiling did the trick.

The tahini/yogurt dressing I actually used kefir and it came out more like a salad dressing and in fact it was so good I’m going to be making it for salad dressing in the future. I blended all the below ingredients in a small food processor.

• 1 cup kefir (or yogurt)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup tahini
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt

This was a very nice and different sort of dish for me.

Now I just need to come up with the low histamine version! I think I might do some sweet potato/chick pea flour burgers as a variation on the theme. Stay tuned.

Eating wholesome whole real food is important for body/mind/spirit health and well-being. I’ve written a lot about my adventure with diet and healing here:  Nutrition and gut health, Mental health and diet

And you can find more Foodie Friday posts and recipes here.