Mediterranean Salad with Baked Sweet Potato Falafel and Very Good Dressing

Last night, after a too-short visit in Wyoming, my lovely big sister took me to eat in Denver at her favorite restaurant before shuttling me to DIA. Among other delicious things, including a cantaloupe sorbet and dark chocolate ice cream mix that was to die for, we devoured incredible sweet potato falafel. In thanks for both the meal and for keeping this blog running while I have been distracted and little sister A has been studying in Latin America, I thought I'd try to recreate it and gift her the recipe.

Well, it turns out that talent much greater than I has already done a wonderful job with a baked version. So instead, I recommend making Heidi Swanson's version of Allegra McEvedy's baked sweet potato falafel. I used much more garlic than was suggested in the recipe, added a bit of fresh mint, skipped the cilantro, and rolled each falafel in black sesame seeds.

Although I'm wildly jumping cuisines here, I would highly encourage you to serve this in the summer like I did, with chopped lettuce, cherry tomatoes roasted in lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper, avocado, and thinly diced shallots.

And no matter the season or what you serve your falafel with, you should definitely make this dressing:

Very Good Dressing

Greek Yogurt and Hummus (in equal part)
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Splash of Olive Oil
Sea Salt, White Pepper, Smoked Paprika and Dill to taste (light on the smoked paprika)

The entire meal is inherently gluten free, and the falafel only requires some chickpea flour. I imagine you could use mashed chickpeas and some wheat flour as a substitute.

Double Lemon Snowpea Pasta

Angelhair topped with parmesan and fresh peapods, flashfried in a bit of olive oil with salt, plenty of chopped garlic, the juice of a nice big lemon, and 1/2 a preserved lemon peel, finely chopped.

Key Lime Pie

Silky, tangy, crunchy, salty, sweet.

Group One:
18 graham crackers (2 packets)
5 TB sugar
6-8 TB melted butter (use salted, or add 1 tsp salt)

Group Two:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
generous 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4-ish limes)
2 tsp lemon juice
zest of one lime

Group Three:
One pint whipping cream
1/2 cup (ish) powdered sugar

(1) Start with the crust. Crush the grahams into crumbs with the sugar (and salt, if using) in food processor. Pour crumbs into a deep pie dish and pour 6 TB of butter over them. Work it in with your fingers. If this isn't enough to cement the crumbs together a bit, add more until it is.

(2) Press crust mixture into the bottom of the dish, then mash the middle with your knuckles to work a layer of crust up the edges. Once you're satisfied, parbake at 350 for 5 minutes.

(3) While baking crust, make filling. Mix Group Two ingredients with a whisk. Taste to make sure it doesn't need more lime or lemon juice to tart things up.

(4) Pour filling into crust. With my pie dish, this won't quite fill the crust, leaving room for a top layer of whipped cream. Bake 15 mins at 350 (until barely jiggly).

(5) Let the pie cool, and whip your cream & sugar into whipped cream. Once pie isn't too hot, pour this on top to make a top layer. Refrigerate till cold, then stick a fork in it.

Key lime would be yummy in an almond meal crust, I betcha.