All in Good Food

Today’s lunch consists of my breaded rice balls (baked), onigiri with broccoli and baked chicken (its hard to see in the center), baked breaded tilapia fingers, baby carrots, broccoli, baby bel cheese and two wedges of laughing cow cheese.

I have been really busy lately and my sleeping is way off so I tried to keep today’s bento very simple.

By the way I split this bento with my daughter it was so filling.

Itadaki masu!

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked rice
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Broccoli cooked and finely chopped
1 Tbsp Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip Mix
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese
2 Eggs
Panko Bread Crumbs
Flour
Cayenne
Cumin

Prep Note:

Cook and chop broccoli. I love that taste of my broccoli. I sauté it in butter with a little garlic powder. I use a frozen broccoli and put it in the pan frozen. Once the broccoli is coated with the butter/garlic I turn down the heat slightly and put on a lid to help it thaw out then turn the heat back up to finish cooking them. However for this recipe I only kept them in long enough to thaw them out so that they could be chopped to go in my rice mix.

Directions:

Take one cup of cooked rice. This recipe works better if the rice is left over from the previous day or even two days prior. Put it in a skillet with about 3 tsp of vegetable oil stirring constantly to heat up the rice.

Then add in 2 tbsp of soy sauce and mix together.

Once thoroughly mixed add in the chopped broccoli as well as cayenne, and cumin to taste. Remove from the heat to another bowl to cool slightly.

Once cooled add in 1 egg, the fiesta dip mix and parmesan cheese and mix well.

Roll the rice mix into 1/2 inch balls. Because this mix is very sticky I suggest that you roll all of your rice at one time before going on to the next step.

As these can be deep fried or oven cooked either method you chose should be preheated. Heat your skillet to medium and your oven (I use a toaster oven) to between 380°-400°.

As this next part can be very messy I suggest that you do this part in steps also. In a bowl put in about a half of a cup of flour. Then roll all of your rice balls in the flour before moving on to the next step. I have also found that when you let the rice balls rest after flouring them the egg and panko bread crumbs stick better.

Then take the floured rice balls and first roll them in the egg in bowl 2 and then the panko breadcrumbs in bowl three. Roll one at a time and set them aside on a plate to rest before dropping them into the hot oil.

Drop in only 4-5 rice balls at a time as they will brown up very quickly. Keep turning them in the oil till they are a golden brown. Then remove and drain.

If you are using the oven method just line them up on a pan after rolling them in the egg and panko bread crumbs, that has been sprayed with cooking spray and drizzle them with any oil such as olive oil. I did not do this with the batch that I baked and even though they still came out tasty they were a little dry on the outside.

The second tier has chicken taco cones, 2 wedges of laughing cow cheese, thin wheat crackers, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies (daughter’s favorite) as well as loaded oatmeal cookies, plus a small amount of trail mix to snack on.