Homemade Rice-a-Roni & Porcupine Roadkill

One of my favorite easy-to-make, no-brainer meals is Porcupine Roadkill.  Gross name, right?  The original dish was called Porcupine Balls because you formed meatballs and cooked them in Rice-a-Roni.  Over time, I got lazy and quit forming the meatballs and just cooked the meat as it was.  I amused myself by creating the name Porcupine Roadkill.  It's quite good.

Not too long ago, I found a pin for making homemade Rice-a-Roni packets.  I used the recipe to make my Porcupine Roadkill, and we all liked it well enough to keep it.  A few days later, I made about 8 or so packets using the ingredients that I had.

Rice -A Roni Packets -- My version

3/4 cup rice (instant brown rice)
1/4 cup broken angel hair pasta
1 Tablespoon minced onion
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder & Italian seasoning
3 cubes beef bouillon

This will just fit in a small snack-sized ziploc bag.

When I made this the first time, I only had chicken bouillon powder.  It tasted ok, but I think the beef bouillon will work better.  I left the cubes in the ziploc bags, because I was too lazy to peel the paper off and crush them.  I'm hoping that when I make it the next time, I won't even have to crush them, just let them dissolve.

Porcupine Roadkill
 
For Porcupine Roadkill, you will need 1 pound of hamburger meat and 1 packet of Homemade Rice-A-Roni plus about 1 cup of water (more or less - eyeball it).

Cook and drain the hamburger, chopping it into pieces.

Add the Rice-a-Roni ingredients (don't forget to peel the paper off the bouillon!) plus the water.

Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer until the rice is cooked.

Source of Original Pin (with more info about different types of rice)