Falafel and Pita bread experiment

I recently purchased a bunch of dried garbanzo beans and was super excited about making falafel with them.  Started out by soaking them overnight and then the children and I set to work in the afternoon making them using THIS recipe that I found on Pinterest.  

We also made our own pitas using THIS recipe from Budget Bytes.  Unfortunately only one pita rose well, but I think that may have been because I had to keep opening the oven to see how they were doing - we don't have an oven light!

We made a yogurt sauce with Greek yogurt, feta cheese and a bit of seasonings from the pantry: lemon pepper, oregano and parsley (I think).

We LOVED them!  The falafel was a bit dense and we can try adding some baking soda to the next batch to see if that lightens it up a bit.  I might try that tomorrow!  We only cooked up half the batch, ended up eating half of that batch and froze the rest.  All in all a wonderful experiment.  

However, I have learned that making messes in the kitchen on Saturday night is NOT the way to go!  I like to take Sunday off so today (Monday) was spent trying to get my kitchen back in order!!  

All those spices smell SO yummy!

Reading 'A Horse and his Boy' while we wait for the Pita dough to rise and falafel to chill.

Getting ready to cook our pitas

cooking the falafels

The Spread

My dinner ... a falafel salad with pita on the side

My girl eating her falafel sandwich