Meat eater, vegetarian or vegan?

Take one tin of chickpeas, open can, place in bowl, attack with potato masher until at desired consistency (smooth or crunchy, like peanut butter), add sautéed chopped onion and crushed garlic and whatever herbs and spices take your fancy. Form into balls then fry. 

You can use a food processor instead of a masher but it's too easy to go past falafel consistency and into hummus territory. Talking of which, this will make enough for 4 people so if cooking for 2 or less use half the chickpeas to make hummus by adding tahini paste to the chickpeas and garlic with a good slug of olive oil and blitzing them in the food processor until smooth. And you can even make your own tahini paste by placing some sesame seeds in a hot dry pan until you can just start to smell their aroma (you don't want to colour them) - remove from the heat and allow to cool -  whizz in a blender with a drizzle of olive oil, keep adding oil until a smooth but slightly sloppy paste is formed, mix in a dash of lemon juice to taste.