The Soup Series: Italian Wedding Soup

If you've read this blog for more than five minutes, you know I cook a lot yet I rarely post recipes. Why? Because I don't measure a lot of the time, and I'm always adding or subtracting or substituting, and I always want to tell people what they could do differently which gets really long. Bottom line, I'm loosey goosey. I wasn't always that way - it only comes from loving to cook, doing it often, and learning the rhythm of food. Now I like to have recipes to start with, but I tweak everything a little to make it more fun.

However, people often ask for the recipe of something I made. And people want measurements, goddamnit. I'm approximating so I can share some recipes on Tuesdays because Tuesdays suck so I will feed you recipes to make you feel better.

This week's soup is Italian wedding. Full ingredient list and instructions after the photos. Let's begin with a haiku for Haikuesday:

A haiku for soup?

Slurp me up, lovin' spoonful.

Good to the last drop, mofo.

I know you don't often hear this, but this soup is a situation where you want your balls to be small. Your meatballs that is. Hey ohhhhhh.

You can use any small pasta for this soup. I chose ditalini. Why? Because in the song Brass in Pocket I always thought the line I've been driving, Detroit leaning was I've been driving, ditalini. That's why.

I went crazy on the spinach, so I strained some out and got myself a nice little spinach side dish. Popeye, call me.

Now for the real shit.

Ingredients
1 small onion, half chopped and half grated
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
10 cups chicken stock
2 cups veggie broth
1 10 oz bag frozen spinach (I initially added 1/4 of another bag, it was like Spinach Town in there)
1/2 box ditalini
kosher salt

meatballs:
1 lb ground turkey
1 egg
1/4-1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1.5 tbs dried parsley
the grated half of the onion
three shakes of garlic powder (do you like this measurement? Lame)
one shake of celery salt

Directions

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a stock pan or dutch oven. Add the carrots and cook about 5 minutes, then add the chopped onion and saute another three minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil.

While the stock is working, make your meatballs. You want to mix everything together by hand, adding bread crumbs by feel. You want them to stick together but not be too wet or too dry. Start with a quarter cup and add more if you need to.

Complete and set aside, and when the stock is at a boil, drop them in one by one close to the pot. Let those go on medium heat for 20 minutes. Resist the urge to stir.

Add the spinach. Hit it with a few pinches of kosher salt, and wait until it returns to a boil (the frozen spinach will cool it down). Once it returns to a boil, add your small pasta.

Let it boil to package directions for firm pasta.

My soup usually soaks up the broth, and I end up adding more at the end. It always tastes fine. I added an additional four cups of broth.

This makes a lot and it freezes well so don't be afraid to freeze half.

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