Wild Rice Stuffing Balls

My sister made "Wild Rice Stuffing Balls" (Wholehearted Eats) for Thanksgiving, and recommended the recipe. Stuffing fairly screams "Thanksgiving," but if you're looking for a special alternative to a meat entree for Hanukkah or Christmas or New Year's or Arbor Day or whatever the kids are celebrating nowadays, this could be it.

Around these parts, we're prepping for Christmas. 

We make gingerbread cookies every year.

The Stuffing Balls are quite a lot of work, so don't be a fool like me, and make them on a random Monday. By the time I got all those darned ingredients mixed together, I was wholly unenthusiastic about shaping them into rather slimy balls. There should actually be a name for that point at the end of the cooking process when I've lost whatever positive spirit I started out with, and I become convinced that the final result won't even taste good. 

But fear not, they really did turn out well! I served them with a vegan gravy that had been in my freezer.

A couple cooking notes: 1) the wild rice took forever to cook; and 2) squeeze the water out of the tempeh as you're crumbling it, before you put it into the bowl.

As an accompaniment, I made "Sweet Potato Fries" (NYT Cooking; subscription required) that I found to be really delicious, and super easy.

And the whole meal was vegan, which is an earth-friendly choice.