Sweet potato falafel salad

I was recently encouraged to post another recipe on BlogAsheville. I'm a local food blogger and this is cross posted at Cucina Naturale.

I got the idea for this dish on the blog Eats Well With Others. I made some changes in how it was prepared 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 caramelized 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


• 3 cloves garlic


• 1/4 cup tahini


• juice of 1/2 lemon


• salt

This was a very nice and somewhat different sort of dish for me that me and my husband very much enjoyed. I hope you like it Asheville!