Arancini

My Sicilian inlaws would not approve of my food attitude but . .  for the most part, Italian food not one of my favorites. I do not like red sauces. I’m not crazy about garlic. White sauces are ok but I’ll take Mexican or cajun food over Italian any day. And, I know there are many other ethnic foods than those few but around here, it’s Mexican, cajun or Italian. I feel bad for Vince that I don’t like red sauce because he likes that as much as I love Mexican and cajun. But, really folks .. with just a few lessons I could have him operating the stove like a pro, but that isn’t going to happen so when I start feeling guilty about opening a jar of Ragu, I say to myself . . he COULD learn to cook too!

Arancini is a stuffed rice ball that is rolled in bread crumbs and fried. That’s a real treat for Vince and a rare treat, I might add. First, I do not like frying much of anything and second, they’re so darned messy. I just don’t like making them.

But he’s moaned and begged for arancini and then he ordered me a new Samsung tablet so I made arancini. I hope there are no authentic Italians reading this because I sometimes add the “Judy shortcut” and butcher traditional recipes. This was on the menu for Monday but since it would be harder to get it done for lunch, I went ahead and made it yesterday and got it over with.

Speaking of that, I can’t remember if I told you about when I was telling my Weight Watchers friend about spaghetti squash. I told her “I think spaghetti squash is a really good Weight Watcher’s item”. I proceeded to tell her how I cook them. She laughed and said “You have just un-weight watchered the hell out of that recipe!” I guess it was the butter and cheese!  🙂

So, as I think about my arancini, I know I have “un-Italianed the hell out of this recipe!” Vince likes it and that’s what matters. Notice . . butter and no red sauce on my pasta! Vince had marinara . . yes, from a jar!

I do know how to make traditional arancini – use arborio rice, cook it like risotto, make it into balls, make a hole in the center, stuff it with goodies and fry it. Marinara sauce is served for dipping.

But the lazy Judy way is to use leftover regular rice because we always have that on hand, add the goodies to the rice, stir it all together, make a hole in the middle and put mozzarella cheese in the hole and fry it. The problem with the regular rice is it doesn’t stick together very well and it isn’t all creamy and yummy. OK! Next time I’ll do it right and use risotto.

The easiest way to do it closer to right is to use this recipe for Creamy Lemon Risotto with Baby Peas since arancini often has peas in it. 

No matter how I make it, the good news is . . there’s always extra that go in the freezer.

When I cook them, I cook 4 and Vince gets 2-1/2 and I get 1-1/2. There were 13 in this batch so 5 of the smaller ones will go into one bag and 4 bigger ones into the other bag and we’ll get three meals out of this recipe – not bad.

I use my Fry Daddy and that’s about the only time I use it so I put fresh oil in it the first them, then stick it in the fridge and over the next couple of weeks, we’ll have arancini again . . and again, and then I’ll dump the oil, clean the Fry Daddy and stick it back in the cabinet til I get shamed into making arancini again.