Spicy Rice Balls

I admit it - every time i hear the word 'ball' in the name of a food, I think of that SNL sketch with Alec Baldwin, Molly Shannon, and Ana Gasteyer talking about Christmas foods on NPR's the Delicious Dish. And every time I think of that sketch I laugh. So maybe I'm a bit of an immature 10 year old boy in that way, but it's a funny sketch. I digress though.

The first recipe I tried - Spicy Rice Balls - is from my Betty Crocker Easy Everyday Vegetarian Cookbook. I was a little apprehensive about this dish at first - I don't have a good track record when it comes to frying things. But I like to think I'm a better cook with a better stove that I was in college (I inadvertently evacuated our townhouses by setting off the fire alarm while trying to fry some chicken), so I soldiered on.

Here are the ingredients:

2 c cooked white rice

1/2 c quick cooking oats

1/2 c chopped onion

1/4 c unseasoned bread crumbs

1/4 c milk

1 t dried basil

1/2 t dried oregano

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1 egg, beaten

1/2 c wheat germ (I used flour, this is just for coating purposes)

It's a pretty straight forward recipe:

1. Mix the rice, oats, onion, break crumbs, milk, basil, oregano, pepper and egg in a medium bowl. Shape mixture into balls and roll in wheat germ (flour) to coat.

2. Heat vegetable oil over medium heat in a 10" skillet. Add rice balls; cook about 10 mins, turning occasionally, until light golden brown.

The way the book makes it sound, you may, like me, make the mistake of thinking this will be easy - though I suppose it depends on how seasoned of a cook you are. After mixing all the ingredients, I tried to roll the rice mixture into the titular shape. This resulted with me having rice covered hands. I should have probably coated them with flour before trying to shape the rice. Oh well. Once I cleared that obstacle and got them in the pan, I found they broke apart while trying to turn them over. No big deal, I just let them cook longer on each turn and made sure there was plenty of room in the pan when I was turning them as I got deeper into the mixture.

All in all, it was a pretty good dish. The recipe would probably be a little better with more spices and it was bit too time consuming for me to do on a regular basis, but I wouldn't mind eating it every now and again.

The book says to serve over spaghetti, but a veggie friend of mine told me not to replace protein with carbs (She gave me the example of not making potato tacos instead of chicken tacos. Hand to God I had never heard of such a wonderful sounding food - combining my Irish love of potatos with my California love of Mexican cuisine - before and they will probably be made sometime before Lent is over, but for the most part I'll try and stick with this rule), so instead I combined them with some red wine and spinach salad.

I saved some and ate them the next day; and yes, they make a tasty left over snack, too.

That's it for this installment! Next up: Vegetarian Quiche!