Italian Wedding Soup

Serves 4-6

I can't follow a recipe. I like reading recipes, I like talking about the recipes I'm gonna try. I pick it out, I get the ingredients, I pull it up on my phone. Then I don't follow the recipe. It doesn't make any sense. I honestly intend to follow the recipe every time. I've decided to just give up the farce and admit this is it for me. Measured is an aspiration.

This weekend, it’s Italian wedding soup; everyone’s invited. The spinach is invited, the carrots and onions and celery are invited, the meatballs are invited. You know who else is invited? A whole chicken! A whole garlic. And my heart. Those are the ingredients I put into my Italian Wedding soup. I used Ina Garten's recipe as my guide. Then I changed a bunch of stuff. Here's my approximate recipe and here's my bowl of soup. What's better than that?

** It’s fun to make a big pot of chicken stock so I always have some in my freezer for recipes like this one. I use a whole chicken, a whole onion, 3 whole carrots, and a whole clove of garlic, and let it simmer for 4 hours. If you don’t have any, you can always buy good quality stock from your butcher.

For the Meatballs:
1 lb ground chicken
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 tbsp dijon mustard
3 tbsp chopped parsley
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan
1 garlic clove, zested
1 shallot, minced
1 large egg, lightly beaten

For the Soup:
3 tbsp good olive oil
1 cup diced onion, cut into 1/8 inch cubes
1 cup diced carrots, cut into 1/8 inch cubes
1 cup diced celery, cut into 1/8 inch cubes
1 cup diced red or orange pepper, cut into 1/8 inch cubes
1 whole head of garlic, cloves peeled
2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
12 cups homemade chicken stock
1 cup cute small pasta like alphabet, stars, tubetini
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 bunches fresh spinach, stemmed and washed well

For the Meatballs:

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Gently fold the seasonings into the ground chicken until it is evenly combined.

2. With clean hands, form meatballs. I like to do about 3/4-oz balls but you can make them as big or small as you’d like.

3. To sear the meatballs, i like to use the pot I’ll cook the soup in, usually a 6-qt dutch oven. Heat the pot on medium high, add oil to coat the bottom and sear the meatballs on all sides until they are golden brown, turning occasionally. Do not cook through. Once they’ve been nicely seared, remove them from the pot. Reserve this pot to start your soup.

For the Soup:

1. Add 1-2 tbsp of olive oil and the diced vegetables to the dutch oven you seared the meatballs in. Sweat vegetables over the crispy bits until they are softened, about 5 minutes. If the bottom of the pan is browning too much, add water to deglaze. Add the garlic, salt and pepper, and cook another 2 minutes.

2. Pour the chicken stock into the pot and let simmer 10 minutes. In the meantime, heat a pot of water to boiling and cook the pasta.

3. Gently add meatballs into the soup and poach another 10 minutes until cooked through.

4. Add spinach to the pot and simmer until wilted. Add the pasta and fresh herbs.

5. Divide soup into bowls. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh ground parmesan or black pepper.