For my birthday the year I got married my mom gave me the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Over the past 16 years I think I have made just about everything in it, but there are some recipes that I come back to over and over again. Porcupine Balls is one of those recipes. It was also one of the first dishes I could make right each time. I've been baking since I was 10, but cooking was another story. When I was first married (poor hubby) I couldn't cook at all. Bubba still brings up the time I tried to make my mom's Italian breaded chicken, but couldn't remember what liquid she used (white wine) so I used water. We literally could not cut through the poor chicken when I was done with it. But I persisted, and eventually became a good cook (if I do say so myself). Now Bubba is a lucky hubby. :)
1 egg 1 can tomato soup 1/4 cup uncooked white rice (or 1/2 cup cooked brown rice) 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/4 tsp pepper 1 pound ground beef 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp dried oregano (optional--I don't use it) 1/2 cup water
Combine the egg, 1/4 cup of the soup (I just eyeball it), rice, onion powder, and pepper. Add the ground beef and mix well.
Shape mixture into 12 meatballs and place in a large greased skillet. I used my electric skillet and gave it a quick shot of cooking spray.
In a small bowl, mix together the rest of the soup, Worcestershire sauce, oregano (if you use it), and 1/2 cup water. Whisk.
Pour the soup mixture over the top of your meatballs.
Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes. Give the meatballs a stir every once in a while. After ten minutes I turn the meatballs over.
Porcupine Balls are super filling and are great paired with green beans and some type of potato. The sauce is yummy over mashed potatoes. Serve them immediately and spoon a little sauce over each one. Whenever we have these we sing the Porcupine Balls song that Tink used to sing when she was 3. She would go around the yard picking up the porcupine balls that fall from trees...
she would cock her head to one side and say, "porcupine balls," and then cock her head to the other side and say it again. It was sooooooo cute. Crazy, adorable cute. I miss the girls as toddlers. :)
Anyway...this recipe is quick, easy, tasty, filling, and cheap.
Brown rice can be a bit intimidating. It takes longer to cook and can be mushy if overcooked. It's a balancing act and most people don't take the time. But when cooked properly, the rewards far outweigh the trouble. There is really no nutrition at all in white rice. It's like white bread; everything good for you has been cooked and processed out. I switched to brown rice years and years ago and while I enjoy the occasional side of sticky white rice with some Chinese take-out, brown rice is the only thing I serve at home. I even make my homemade fried rice with brown. The flavor is richer and has a subtle nuttiness.
Normally I throw my rice and water into a rice cooker and set it for 45 minutes, but not everyone has a rice cooker. So I thought I would post instructions for making it in the microwave. It's really simple and requires minimal effort. Plus it's super tasty, making it the perfect side dish to any meal.
You will need:
1 cup whole grain brown rice 2 chicken bullion cubes 3 cups water 1T oil 2.5 quart microwave safe dish with lid
Add the water and oil to your dish then crumble the bullion cubes into the water.
Sprinkle the rice on top and give it a little stir.
Cook in the microwave, uncovered, for 10 minutes on high power. Then cover the dish (but don't stir!!) and cook for 30 minutes on 50% power. Don't open the microwave yet. Let the dish sit in it for 10 minutes. Then take it out and fluff with a fork.
That's it! See how simple and not intimidating that was?
I was looking online for a recipe for orange chicken and couldn't find one that I liked or that I had all the ingredients for until I stumbled on this one. But I don't think you can call this orange chicken. It's good, really good, especially on a salad, but orange chicken it is not. :) It's very simple, though, and I bet you have all of the ingredients on hand.
1 cup orange juice 1 T soy sauce (I used reduced-sodium) 1 envelope Lipton onion soup mix 1/2 tsp garlic powder 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
I cleaned the chicken, cut it into strips, and put them into a plastic bag. (I use kitchen shears to cut up chicken and like the smaller pieces because they cook more evenly.) I mixed together the oj, soy sauce, Lipton, garlic powder and poured the mixture on top of the chicken. I let it marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours, but you could leave it alone all night or for just 30 minutes. I lined a 9x13 inch glass dish with foil and poured the chicken and marinade into it.
Bake at 375, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened a bit and the chicken is cooked through. I served it over brown rice for hubby and the girls, but I ate mine on a salad.
In my salad I had iceberg and romaine lettuce, carrots, the chopped up chicken with a bit of the sauce, pumpkin seeds, and a honey dijon vinaigrette.
If you are anything like me, you love Chinese take-out. Love it, could eat it every weekend, crave it during the week. But I don't love all the salt or all the grease and I especially don't love the next-day water retention. So, I created a recipe that uses a healthy oil and brown rice and that tastes even better than take-out, while not making me swell up like a puffer fish. The best part of this recipe is that you can add any vegetable you like, switch out the chicken for pork or beef, or leave out the meat entirely. It's all about finding recipes you like and making them your own. It's a rare occasion when I make a recipe exactly as written. For this recipe you will need: pre-cooked brown rice, about a cup oil (your choice: olive, canola, whatever) carrots onion frozen peas 2 eggs low-sodium soy sauce skinless, boneless chicken breasts (one per person)
Start by chopping up enough onion and carrots to feed your brood. I use two handfuls of baby carrots and one large onion and chop them into tiny bits in my Handi Chopper. (Good tip for feeding vegetables to kids is to chop them so tiny that they go unnoticed in the food.) Add about 2T of olive or canola oil to a skillet (doesn't have to be electric) and cook your veggies until they are almost, but not quite, tender.
Clean and chop boneless, skinless chicken breasts (one for each person) and add to pan. I use kitchen shears to chop up my chicken. It is easier than using a knife and you don't have to fool with sterilizing a cutting board after using. Cook the chicken until no pink remains in the middle. I usually put a top on the skillet for a good 5-10 minutes to help the chicken hurry up. But don't leave it on too long or all of the moisture will leave your meat.
When your chicken is mostly done add 2T (or more to taste) of a low-sodium soy sauce. The low-sodium is key to avoid the next-day bloat. To be honest, I don't really measure anything in this recipe. I shake on the soy sauce until the chicken looks halfway covered, but it feels like about 2-3T.
I don't measure the frozen peas either-about 3 handfuls. And maybe an extra one. I love peas. You definitely don't want to add them with the rest of your vegetables or you will have pea mash. Not tasty. Add your peas with your already cooked brown rice. About a cup. I like to cook my brown rice with a couple of low sodium chicken bullion cubes and 1T of olive or canola oil. (Smart Balance has an amazing new oil that is a mix of olive, canola, and soy oils--for those of us who think olive oil has an aftertaste.)
Now the fun part. The eggs! Look at these cuties...straight from our chickens in the backyard. Thank you Smores and Eragon!
If you don't have backyard chickens, store bought eggs will do. :) I use two, but you can leave out this part, add more eggs, or just use one. Cook to your taste! Whisk the eggs and either push the food to one side and cook them in the same skillet or use a clean frying pan and scramble them. I use the same skillet...I think it gives the eggs extra veggie and soy sauce flavor.
Once the eggs are cooked, mix them into the rest of the food and serve. This homemade fried rice is not the same thing you get from fast food Chinese. It has a softer texture and a lot more moisture. But my family chooses this dish over take-out every time and I love that they are getting healthier ingredients. The brown rice in particular is amazing. You could definitely substitute white in the recipe, but brown rice adds a nutty, extra layer of flavor that stomps all over white rice.
The most important thing is to tailor this recipe to your taste. If I was making it just for me, I would add snow peas, cabbage, green peppers, and maybe even some zucchini. I get outvoted on those ingredients when making it for the family, though. Although next time...maybe I could sneak in the cabbage...if it was really small....
I created this food blog when my two girls were young, I was a stay-at-home mom, and I had not yet attended culinary school. Now I'm a classically trained chef with two college-age daughters. This blog will always be so special to me and I hope you enjoy my old recipes.
