Here come the excuses... Italian Wedding Soup
With the incredible business of cleaning for Passover, along with all of the friend-type activities going on, I haven't had a second to start thinking about what I'm going to put up here. Thankfully, I documented a 3-course night: my version of an Italian Wedding soup, Lasagna, and Cheesecake. I made all of these in one night to make sure I had time to prep a salad for my mom's dinner meal, which included the lasagna and the cheesecake. The Italian Wedding soup we ate that night. So, I'll beg forgiveness and wow you with 3 different recipes today. First up: the Italian Wedding soup:
I make this soup often-ish, as it contains things I usually have in the kitchen: onion, celery, carrots, zucchini, spinach, broth, and ground meat. It's totally forgiving and incredibly tasty.
While waiting for everything to sautee below, pull out about a pound and a half of ground meat. I use ground beef, because I rarely ever use it for anything else, and it will totally get freezerburned if I don't put it to use. In a medium-sized bowl add the meat, then add 1 egg, some breadcrumbs or panko, lots of onion powder, some garlic powder, a pinch of hot curry, and a grind of hot red pepper flakes. I like my meatballs spicy. Hand-mix this all together and form into 1" meatballs. Place the meatballs in a pan and put into a 400-degree oven.
After 20 minutes, check the meatballs - they should be a medium-brown on the top and a lot of the fat and stuff should be in the pan. They're done! Don't worry about cooking these all the way through, as they'll be cooking in the soup, too - we just wanted to get some of the fat out. Drain the pan and hold the meatballs to add when the soup is ready for them.
Start off with chopped onion, celery, and garlic - sautee in a large pot with some olive oil over medium heat. When the onions become translucent, add sliced carrots.
Sautee the carrot about 5 minutes longer, then add approximately 4C chicken broth and 4C water. I made broth from the Honey-Mustard Blackened Chicken I made the week before, which had a wonderful flavor. Without that, I would have just used some No-Chicken broth from the store. If you want to add some pulled chicken to the soup (as I usually do, but I didn't have any chicken left this time), add it now.
Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat to medium. Add the meatballs and cover to let the soup simmer. Check back every 5-7 minutes, and once the meatballs are floating, add the sliced zucchini. Cover again and let simmer for 10 minutes.
Chop up some raw spinach (I think you could use frozen, but I've never tried this) and add it to the soup. Cover again and let simmer for 5 minutes.
Last step! Pour in 1 1/2 - 2 Cups of a small-sized pasta. I used ditalini, but that's because I can't find orzo at the Co-Op.
Let the noodles cook to al dente and voila! Bon Appetit!
