Rice Balls

This is a new idea for me, but I love it. This post is done by a guest author, my talented sister Heidi. She wanted to make this recipe and I hadn't yet. So we figured it would be a great opportunity for her to guest-blog! Enjoy her wonderful recipe!

~ Julie

Like many moms of young children (mine are 18 months and *almost* 3) I often struggle with what to make for lunch. I find myself in the same rut: mac & cheese, pb&j, grilled cheese, and quesadillas. I like chicken nuggets (as do my kids) but after watching an episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution where he shows how chicken nuggets are made (ewwww) I can't ever do that to my children again. So I set out on a mission, to find easy but healthy food to feed my kids. Of course, the first thing I turn to is Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious. I thought the Rice Balls looked easy and wondered if I made a double batch, would they freeze well. I called my baby sister Julie and discussed the possibilities. She invited me to try it and then do a guest post on her blog. And here I am.

The recipe is as follows:

1/2 cup short grain brown rice (or 1 cup leftover cooked rice) - I have come a long way in eating whole grains and whatnot, but when it comes to rice, I will never cross over to the dark side. It was long-grain, nutrient-lacking white rice for me, which was leftover from dinner a couple of nights before.
Nonstick cooking spray
3 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 pound chicken cutlets, rinsed and dried - I made boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner the night before and just cooked up a couple of extra then.
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese - Frankly, I think reduced fat cheese is almost as much of an insult to all that is yummy as american cheese is. Yuck.
1/4 low fat buttermilk - I didn't have buttermilk so I used plain whole milk.
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup spinach or broccoli or butternut squash puree - I used butternut squash
1 1/2 cup whole wheat cracker crumbs or breadcrumbs
*Her recipe didn't call for flax seed meal, but most of her breaded recipes do so I threw in a couple of tablespoons just for good measure

Instructions:

1 - Place the rice in a small saucepan with 1 cup of water; cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to very low and cook until the rice is tender, 30 to 40 minutes. You can also use your rice steamer.

2 - Meanwhile, coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add 1 tsp oil. Sprinkle the chicken with 1/4 tsp salt and the pepper, and cook until no longer pink in the center, 4 to 5 minutes per side.

3 - Cut the chicken into chunks and place them in a food processor or blender. Add the sweet potato puree, cheese, 1 tsp salt, and the buttermilk, and blend until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir in the cooked rice.

Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls and place them on a sheet of waxed paper or aluminum foil.

4 - In a shallow bowl, beat the egg and vegetable puree with a fork. Put the crumbs (and flax seed) in the bowl. One at a time, dip the rice balls in the egg mixture, then roll them in the crumbs to make sure it has an even coating.

**This is where I deviated from the recipe. I stuck them in the freezer on cookie sheets until they were frozen. then I put them in freezer safe bags and waited for a few days to see how they would work as a frozen food.

5 - Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the remaining 2 teaspoons oil. Add the rice balls and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, turning occasionally and spraying with cooking spray until browned and crisp all over. Serve warm.

I found that they did very well going straight from freezer to pan. You just need to make sure that when you cook them, the pan isn't so hot that you burn the outside before the inside is warm.

Now, for the purposes of full disclosure, when I put this in front of the kids, my younger one dug right in. She even picked them over the strawberries. My older one, on the other hand, ate a few strawberries then took a bite of the rice balls and immediately declared them "icky". Of course, at that point, the little one heard that big brother had called them icky, so the little monkey-do had to call them icky too and now neither kid will eat them now. But I would comfortably say that your standard kid is really going to like them.

Orange Cream Floats

I didn't like this the first time I had it, but the second time I really liked it. The third, even more. I like that it's a dessert, but it's more bitter than sweet. It's the orange juice concentrate, I think. Anyhow, I enjoy its difference. It's refreshing. (Although I had some issues with my ice cream, so for all I know, I just didn't add enough and it was supposed to taste differently. Either way I'm sure it's a delicious recipe!)

Ingredients

2 pints (4 cups) vanilla ice cream, softened (I tried measuring out the ice cream from a big tub. Would've been easier to buy it by the pint. I don't know if I used enough ice cream.)
1 can (6 oz.) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
¾ cup water
½ tsp vanilla
Red and yellow food coloring, if desired
1 bottle (2 liters) ginger ale

In large bowl, mix ice cream, orange juice concentrate, water, vanilla and food color until almost smooth. For each serving, scoop heaping ½ cup ice cream mixture into 16 oz. glass. Pour about 1 cup ginger ale over top of each. You can make the ice cream mixture before serving and store it in the freezer.

My first attempt was really sloshy. The ice cream was basically melted and so it looked like a big orange juice with foam. Then I froze the mixture and scooped it straight out of the fridge and added the ginger ale. That was when I liked it better.

More on Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, the last time I made chocolate chip cookies, I only did two batches, so I froze the rest of the dough. I found that it only takes a few hours to completely thaw out. That would be ideal for cooking. However, I was feeling lazy last night when the dough was thawed and put it in the fridge. So when I made them this morning, it was a little hard. However, it still worked out great. I would recommend letting the dough be completely thawed, but if you want to pull it out of the freezer one night and pop it in the fridge, you should be able to cook them the next morning doing it the way I did here.

Here's the dough. Just put it in a tupperware and popped it in the freezer!

Because the dough was cold, I couldn't plop them down like you normally would, so I molded them into balls with my hands like so.

They came out pretty well. They didn't cook as even because of the cold dough. I cooked them a few minutes longer than usual and they still looked doughy in the center. Of course once they cooled, they still tasted great. My husband can attest to this.

Hamburgers

We had hamburgers a few weeks ago before I really started blogging here. At the time, we had more meat than we needed, so I decided to pre-shape some of them and freeze them for another time. That was what we ate a few nights ago. However, I neglected to get a picture of the patties all neatly frozen, nor did I take one before I had already bitten into my hamburger. So excuse the partially eaten hamburger picture. I took it, so I just had to use it. Anyhow, this had two stages.

Stage 1: Making the patties

Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef or turkey (we use turkey all the time)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
liberal dousing (maybe a tbsp) of Alpine Touch (an all-purpose seasoner with garlic, salt, onion and pepper.)

You can season it in a multitude of ways. I've used worchestershire sauce, and tons of different combinations. What is listed above is our generic hamburger recipe. In the burgers shown above, I even added some grated cheddar cheese, instead of slicing it and adding it later on. It was a success, I'd say.

For shaping this burgers, this is the format. Choose how big you want them to be. Quarter pounders is quite big, but sometimes it's just the right size. With the recipe above, you can make 4 larger burgers, or you can make anywhere from 5-7 smaller burgers. Just realize that if you don't get them real skinny they will plump up when cooking and that can make them seem smaller in comparison to the bun. I used two sheets of wax paper. Put the amount of meat you want to use between the two and shape. (The wax paper keeps your hands from getting really sticky and gross) Keep in mind if you choose to use turkey, that the meat will be significantly more sticky and soft. After shaping, you may immediately grill, or freeze for later use.

Stage 2: Cooking or freezing

If freezing shape the patties, then stack them with a piece of wax paper between each patty. Make sure the wax paper is large enough to separate the meat patties from touching. Then place the stack of patties in a bag and plop in the freezer until you want to cook them! Upon removing them, you may have to pry them apart with a butter knife. However, the wax paper comes off really easily. Then plop right on a hot grill. They don't take too long to cook. I found that the pre-frozen patties tended to hold their shape better and make better patties. When you don't freeze them, they puff up while cooking, which makes them smaller in comparison to the buns. It's a technicality, but I liked them better that way. In freezing them, you can also make more than one batch at a time, so you have some on hand at the last minute.

Pizza #2

So we did pizza again last night. It came out awesome! When I made the crust last time, I made 2. I precooked the second one and then froze it. (Like the directions say, without adding the toppings for the second bake) It worked out great. I also made sure to add some flax seed to my sauce for added fiber! The sauce was also leftover from last time. The recipe I shared makes 2 pizza's worth.  On this pizza we had pepperoni, mozzarella, sauteed green pepper, onion and garlic. We also had a few chicken tenders in BBQ sauce that we put in the pan too. I thought it might be weird having pizza sauce with BBQ chicken, but it was great. Oh yeah, we also had a few strips of bacon chopped up as well. Add some canned olives and mushrooms, and we had a monster pizza! It was really good!