Broccoli balls

Composed long ago and never posted.  Who knows where the source recipe is?  But since I apparently completely changed the recipe, maybe it doesn't matter?

I used prechopped stuff and finished chopping in the food processor because I am lazy.

How handy that the cheese comes in 2-cup size. Wish the broccoli had. 

And yes, I am still lazy so it is pre-grated. And health-ish lower fat cheese. 

OK, to sub in egg whites we have this conversion:

But I want the volume of the whole egg not just the whites so I tried 2/3 cup. 

And I substituted oats for the bread crumbs. Which are not sticky like bread is so I was left with something that showed little or no interest in sticking together into balls. 

So experimentation time. 

Experiment 1 is just to make small heaps on the cookie sheet. 

Experiment 2 is to fill little silicone muffin holders with the stuff. 

At ten minutes the recipe says to flip them. There is a little visible meltage - maybe this will work?

The piles broke apart a bit. The ones in cups stayed more intact but had more of their cheese pooled at the bottom (now the top). 

The ones in the molds turned out much more solid:

Taste test:  

Broccoli is a bit undercooked. Cheese fully done; would be burnt if left longer. Oats barely noticable. 

For the next batch the main variable was letting the ingredients sit for a half-hour before baking. The hope was that the oats would soak in some of the egg liquid and become sticky. The mixture did seem a bit stickier when I did this batch. 

Also I realized I could use the muffin molds to shape nicer piles. 

These definitely came out more solid:

The next two experiments involved adding a bit of milk to the mix and letting the mix sit for a half-hour.  To account for the extra moisture I increased the bake time to 30 minutes, with the first 15 inside a muffin cup and the second 15 with the cup removed. 

These were really tasty on the taste test. Of course by now it was practically a quiche. Which gives me ideas for my next bout of making quiche.