Well if you like my veggie balls you'll love my Schweddy balls too...

Jokes aside, thanks for asking, I'd be happy to elaborate. The first time I made this I was trying to make veggie patties, but the consistency ended up not being sufficient for this purpose, although I'm open to ideas (I ultimately determined I didn't need the extra carbs that a bun would add, rendering the "patty" form superfluous). I don't really measure the amounts when I make it, but I can give rough estimates and the proccess is pretty simple. As a caveat, it's not difficult at all, but it does take a few hours (most of it is spent waiting, you just need to be nearby to check on things every 5-10 mins):

• 1.5 cups brown rice, dry (I use a brown rice, black barley, and daikon seed blend from trader joe's)

• 2 cups beans, dry (I use a 17 bean & barley mix, also from trader joe's)

• 1 cup black lentils, dry (other colors would be fine too, the black ones have lots of protein)

• 2 large, fresh portobello mushrooms, stems removed and diced into small pieces

• 1 medium white or yellow onion, diced

• 4-5 cloves garlic, to taste

• 3 large eggs

EDIT: after eating another portion of my current stock, I realized this also calls for a diced red bell pepper, added with the mushroom and onions.

Method:

Quick-soak the beans by placing them in a pot and cover with 3X their volume in water and bring to a boil. When it boils, remove from the heat and let it sit, covered, for an hour. If you're short on pots, pour everything into a bowl to soak so you can use the pot for something else. You could also just soak the beans in cold water overnight, but I usually forget.

While the beans are soaking, it's time to prepare the rice and lentils. Wash the rice and the lentils in a bowl (not together), pour each into a pan. Cover the rice with a little less than 3X it's volume in water. Cover the lentils with 2X their volume of water, bring both to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a gentle boil and cover. The lentils should take about 15-20 minutes, you want them to be tender but not mushy and falling apart. Undercooking slightly is OK since the balls will have more time on the stove when they are reheated. The rice will take about a half hour. Again, slightly undercooking is OK, but make sure it's not still crunchy.

When the rice and lentils are done, put them into a large mixing bowl and put the whole thing in the fridge to cool. By the time you've done this, the beans can be cooked. Pour them back into the pot (if you've moved them) and add a little more water, a pinch of salt, and 1-2tbsps butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover with the top "tilted" allowing steam to escape, and stir occasionally over the course of 45 minutes to an hour - keep tasting the beans and you'll know when they're done. Slight undercooking allowable here as well. You may have to add water at some point if too much boils off. When the beans are done, take the rice/lentils out from the fridge and add the beans. Stir it up good and the whole thing should wind up at room temperature.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork. Add the spices to the egg. I use chili power, a little salt, cayenne & black pepper, and some cumin and turmeric. You can always add more later if you didn't put in enough the first time around. Hmm I may use garlic salt as well... Add the egg/spice mixture to the bowl and stir it up again. Now dice the onion and the mushrooms, and add those to the bowl. Finely mince the garlic and add that to the bowl, and stir the whole thing up again.

Your pretty much done! The onion and mushrooms cook when you reheat over the stove. In terms of making the balls, I just realized a muffin pan would be excellent - you can just liberally fill each muffin compartment with a "heaping scoop" as they say, and then grab one out and toss it in a pan when you want it. To reheat, I add a dab of oil to a frying pan and heat it up on medium, then just toss the ball in there along with a little splash of water (1-2tbps). Cover it and let it sit for a minute or two, then when you take the cover off, start stirring and the ball should fall apart slowly. From this point just keep things moving in the pan - the whole process takes about 5mins from frozen until done. You want to be sure to brown everything slightly to really bring out the flavors, an extra minute of cooking is never a bad thing.

One batch for me makes about 12 good sized servings. Each one has approx. 230 calories, 40g complex carbs, 14g protein, 12g fiber, less than 2g of fat (a tad more considering the oil for reheating), and is pretty high in natural iron. In fact I'm going to go have some right now :)