Mini-Meatball Soup

Years ago I lifted the basic recipe for Italian Wedding Soup and made it my own. The soup becomes a luscious, silky concoction of vegetables, meatballs and pasta. Absolutely delicious on a cold spring day, light enough for hot summer days.

I put a soup pot on the burner at sauté heat and drizzled in a round of extra virgin olive oil.

Got out the chopping board and my knife. I diced up:
- one large red onion
- two stalks of celery

Earthbound Farm Organic sells snack packs of really small carrots, so I threw in three packs of those.

I then put in two bay leaves and stirred the pot.

I went to the fridge and pulled out the jar of pureed fresh ginger. I put a scant spoonful of that in there. (A regular spoon, not a soup spoon.)

I stirred.

I turned the heat up to high and put three 16 oz cans of chicken broth into the pot. I then added two cups of water.

Pulled 1 lb of hamburger and the jar of minced garlic out of the fridge and put it into a bowl.

I then put two handfuls of parmesan cheese into the bowl.

I poured two cups of breadcrumbs in there.

I put an egg in there and a 1/2 cup of water.

I put a heaping spoonful of minced garlic in there too.

I waited for the pot to bowl and walked over to the stove with my meat bowl.

I made miniature meatballs with my hands and dropped them into the boiling soup.

When I was done, I put a cup of alphabet pasta into the soup.

Then I put a cup of tubettini pasta into the soup.

I then let it boil away until the pasta was done...

In the meantime, I grabbed the bag of fresh spinach that we had in the fridge and chopped it up. All I did was run my knife through the spinach about 10 times.

Then, when the pasta was nearly done, I started dropping handfuls of the spinach into the soup pot. I let the spinach wilt in and I would drop the next handful. I'd stir it periodically with the soup still boiling away.

When the spinach was all in, the soup was done!

I don't serve it with anything because we find it's a full meat, but crusty bread or grilled cheese sandwiches are a fantastic accompaniment.

Beware: the soup is really hot! You may want to wait for it to cool a bit.