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.

Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes

Last night's menu:
- meatloaf
- mashed potatoes
- sauteed spinach
- Banoffee Pie, previously mentioned in this blog

1. I used the KitchenAid mixer with the flat beater to mix up four sirloin hamburgers, breadcrumbs, a healthy helping of Muir Glen crushed fire roasted tomatoes, one minced onion and a tablespoon or so of Italian herbage. I put it all in a loaf pan and cooked that on 400F for about 85 minutes.
2. I diced up six potatoes and boiled them until they were mash-worthy. Mom seasoned them and we used the KitchenAid mixer with the flat beater to do the rest.
3. I put a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into a saute pan and added some minced garlic to that. Sauteed that on medium for a few minutes and then I added some chicken broth to thepan. I then then started adding spinach and in no time at all it was wilted.

I made the Banoffee Pie and it was more like pie soup. Something's missing from the recipe, perhaps something like "cook the sweetened condensed milk until it's jelled" or something. It was also incredibly over-sweet. Not that it wasn't good, but it couldn't be sliced and even one dessert bowlful made one sick. The best part was that I learned how to make homemade whipped cream: whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla. Dad was pretty shocked that I didn't use Cool Whip.

Eggplant Casserole Acadiana

Eggplant Casserole Acadiana Recipe: Recipes: Food Network

Oh my gosh this sound incredible. I'll bet my Mom would actually eat eggplant this way.

Savory Feta Pies

Savory Feta Pies - Allrecipes