Best Beer in the world is 8 miles from my house.

I was strangely excited all day for making falafel.  I am clearly a person who leads a very exciting life.

After work I needed to run to Whole Foods for some dairy free yogurt for the tzatziki sauce and drop off some mason jars for a coconut oil co-op I joined (speaking of which, this story about how it has been healing Alzheimer's is crazy, drink up) and then got stuck in a two hour traffic jam at 2pm on 275 because of an accident.  Yowsa.  I had lots of time to think about falafel.

I was inspired by this recipe from Vegan Stoner....Falafel Pie.  That just looks so delicious to me.

Source:  http://theveganstoner.blogspot.com/2012/03/falafel-pie.html

I had all of the other ingredients but the stuff to make the tzatziki sauce so in comes Whole Foods for soy yogurt but there is some shortage on soy yogurt and I ended up with coconut yogurt which was really "So Delicious" (it doesn't taste like coconut).  <--that sentence was a crazy run on but I laughed re reading it so I left it.

I didn't have falafel mix and didn't want to buy any because I figured I couldn't make some with stuff I already had and it would be even better.  And boy, it was good. 

I found this recipe online and substituted some stuff for what we had/like:

-15 ounces of garbanzo beans
-4 cloves of garlic
-one small onion
-one tsp of cumin
-one tsp of coriander
-quarter cup of oatmeal
-squeeze of a lemon (around 2 tsp)
-one tsp of red pepper flakes
-one tsp of baking powder
-handful of fresh parsley
-handful of fresh cilantro
-salt to taste

Put everything in food processor for a minute.  Press into a pie plate and bake for 20 minutes at 375.  We did not let ours cool very much but we probably should have, especially if you want to serve in slices like a pie.  It holds together very well after cooling some.

The original inspiration has hummus filling the "pie" but I didn't feel like that was needed with all of the fresh veggies I'd bought to fill it.  The protein was already there in the falafel and too many beans can lead to some weird body stuff so I didn't feel bad leaving it out.

I sliced some super red ripe tomatoes and used them as my base layer.  I then added some chopped kale (I massaged with some lemon juice and garlic powder), red pepper, red onion, and kalamata olives.  Matt kind of HATES cucumbers so while that would have made this more impressive with another layer, I just ate mine on the side. 

For the tzatziki sauce I processed my cup of coconut plain yogurt, one peeled cucumber, two garlic cloves, the rest of the lemon juice from my half of lemon for the falafel, and salt to taste.  It was so so so good as a dressing for the whole pie. 

I mixed a spoonful of the dairy free tzatziki sauce with two parts sour cream for Matt. 

I cooked the garbanzos in the slow cooker the night before and this entire dish came together in 30 minutes.  And it was so good.  I love fried falafel but this had the flavor of the fried stuff without the oil. 

What better way to finish up a day of sitting in traffic than at your most favorite bar?

Cigar City delivered last night. 

Every single beer in my flight was great.

From the left:  Cucumber Saison, Granola Brown Ale, Horchata Ale, Nitro Whiskey Stout

The Granola Brown was probably my favorite of the evening.  Sounds weird.  Too good.