Dinner Party-worthy Vegan Spaghetti

Back when I was single, my go-to dinner party food was spaghetti.  I say this with the same pride that one might say, "I always make a sublime coc au vin for our dinner parties."  Spaghetti cannot, technically, be considered an adequate dinner party food, particularly when most of it comes from a jar or can.
Having aged evolved a bit, my current version of spaghetti is a family favorite.  This has not always been the case.  When I first made it for the children, it contained a good deal of ground beef AND ground turkey.  They loved it.  It was because of that recipe that we came up with a rule that a full glass of water had to be consumed and 10 minutes needed to pass before seconds could be eaten.  They would wolf the spaghetti down so fast we occasionally worried they might take us with them.  And we NEVER had any left-overs.  The water/10 minute trick worked...about 1/2 the time.  The other 1/2 they spent slurping down anything in their site that remotely resembled tomato sauce.
Then there were the initial months of me cooking as a vegetarian.  They still liked the taste of the sauce, but there seemed to be a lot more left-overs.  They weren't all that thrilled with the chunkiness of the vegetable-packed sauce.  It was a texture thing.
So, I started to puree the vegetables a la that one celebrity and that one cookbook author who keep fighting over whose idea it was first.  This was fine for a while, but they really missed the texture they had so thoroughly enjoyed when the sauce was laden with meat.
Sidebar: I don't require my family to be vegetarians.  Since I make the majority of the food, however, I do cook vegetarian.  Though I am willing to add cheese to their food, I am not interested in fiddling with raw meat.  Therefore, they don't eat a lot of meat at home.
Anywho... I tried adding beans to offer some texture, but they were not fooled.  Still, they never lost hope.   They tirelessly requested spaghetti for dinner and went into each venture deeply faithful that Mamma would come through.  I rarely did.  Until now!
My last few spaghetti dinners have been wildly successful and we are once again enforcing the water/10 minute rule in a frequently futile attempt to garner some left-overs.  The trick is ...
Are you sitting down for this?
The trick is ...
FALAFEL MIX!
That's right.  Falafel Mix.  Could you just pee your pants right there?  Falafel Mix!
Here's how it works...
Dinner Party-worthy Vegan Spaghetti
(serves a family of 5 with left-overs, if you employ the water/10 minute rule)
Ingredients:
Spaghetti noodles (We use brown rice noodles when the livin' is easy and Thai rice noodles, the cheap ones from Asian markets, when things are a little tight)
1 c. boxed Falafel Mix (I use Ziyad Brand Falefil [sic] Mix)
3/4 c. cold water
2-3 large cans crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce (depending on your preference and on how much you want)
1-2 large onions, diced (depending on how much you like onions and how badly they make you cry)
1 T. olive oil plus 1 T. olive oil
1-2 c. diced vegetables (like zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, carrots)
5 cloves garlic, chopped (I LOVE garlic)
1 t. parsley (to taste)
2 t. basil (to taste)
1/2 t. thyme (to taste)
1-2 t. cinnamon (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
10 pitted Kalamata black olives, chopped
If you like it a little sweet, 1 T. agave
Put Falafel Mix in a bowl with water and let sit 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large saucepan.  When warm, add diced onions.  When onions start to brown, add garlic.  Saute 2 minutes more.  Add all other ingredients, except Falafel mixture, and stir.  Bring to a boil and then simmer.
In a saute pan, heat olive oil on medium.  When hot, add the Falafel mixture and pat down with a spatula, as if you were making an enormous pancake.  To make this easier, you can also form burger-sized patties and add those to the pan.  It's just not as fun to flip when you get to the next step.  When brown on one side, flip.  Let brown just slightly and then take the sharp edge of the spatula and start to break apart until it has the same consistency as ground meat.  Brown a few more minutes.  You want it to be chewy.
Add Felafel mixture to spaghetti sauce and stir.  Continue to simmer ever so slightly while you make the noodles per package directions (If you are like me, you would have started the water the minute the onions first hit the pan and your water would be furiously boiling by now, causing you to shoo the children from the kitchen for fear they might get caught in a tidal wave of boiling water).
Drain and rinse noodles and serve on a plate drenched in sauce.  Drink water and wait 10 minutes before having seconds.  Trust me.

I like to top the noodles with some spaghetti
squash before topping with the sauce.