Top Chef

So, in an effort to 1) teach her some cooking skills and 2) encourage her to use her newly healed arm (Bella broke her arm a month ago--yeeeaaahh...I'll blog about it some time next year) we busted out our Paula Deen's childrens cookbook and Bella decided she was going to cook Porcupine Balls for dinner.

Yes, Porcupine Balls. Doesn't sound appealing, now does it? Actually, this meal was really good. Like surprisingly good. It was also a sinch to make and our kids loved seeing what happened to the meatballs. A definite recommendation if you've got kids intrested in cooking. But the best part? It's the only Paula Deen recipe that doesn't include a stick of butter!

Here's the 411....

Ingredients:

1 lb. of lean ground beef
1 1/4 cups of uncooked white rice
1 tsp dried onion
1 tsp seasoned salt
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes with juice
1 10.5 oz. can of beef broth
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1. Turn the oven to 350 degrees

2. Put the ground beef in the mixing bowl. Measure 1/2 cup of the rice and put it in with the meat. Add the dried onion, seasoned salt, and Italian seasoning. Mix it all together with your CLEAN hands. Roll it into 8 or 9 golfball size balls of meat. NOTE: Bella wanted to instead make 20 smaller ones. Whatev!

3. Put the rest of the rice in the bottom of the baking dish. Pour in the tomatoes and the beef broth and stir with a spoon. Put the meat balls on top. Cover the dish tightly with foil.

4. Bake for about an hour. When you carefully remove the dish you'll see that the rice in the meatballs will have puffed up all around the meat looking like little porcupines!

And the result?

Bon Appetit!