As all of you know, I get a Boston Organics order every two weeks, and end up with ingredients that inspire me to try new things. (stay posted for my first attempts at making ravioli) Well from my last order, I ended up with a lot of spinach. And I had some frozen ground chicken. I thought I'd make some type of spinach pasta, and so, turned to trusty foodtv.com to look for recipes. But I was soon inspired to make something else...Italian wedding soup. I had all the ingredients at home, and other than making meatballs, it didn't seem that difficult.
So I started off with the hard part, made vastly easlier by my possession of a mini cuisinart chopper thing. Here's the garlic and onions in the chopper, which i chopped to pretty fine pieces (no chunks).
Then, i put the chicken in a separate bowl, cracked in an egg and breadcrumbs (which help to bind the meatballs) and tossed in the chopped garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Now here's the messy part, I had to mix it all by hand and then i started forming the meatballs.
After looking at a few recipes, I learned that people have different opinions on what you should do with the meatballs before adding them to the soup. Some suggested baking them until they're cooked. Others suggested pan frying them (and I could definetly see how this would bring more flavor out of the meatballs and ensure that the meatballs would be cooked through). But i chose to take the path of least resistance and extra work, so i formed smaller meatballs that could be dropped directly into the boiling broth. Here they are before, I think they look pretty good.
Next, I washed off my spinach, which inspired all this entire recipe and I brought 3 cans of chicken broth to a boil.
As soon as the broth boiled, i added the spinach and let it cook down a little. Then I added my meatballs. According to Bobby Flay, when the meatballs start to float, you now they're ready. And that didn't take very long. So here's the finished product below. I also threw in some cooked bowtie noodles, so it'd be a true meal. I gotta say that I was pretty happy with the reult. Maybe it's because i used chicken or because I dropped them directly into the water, but the meatballs did turn out a bit mushy, but i ate them anyway. Also, I ended up freezing the leftovers and I'll tell you that it also freezes really well. So if you ever have any leftover spinach around, gives this recipe a try, no Italians or weddings necessary.
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