Italian Wedding Soup

I live in LA and it is summer.  Well, you wouldn’t know it by looking outside.  It’s overcast and it just drizzled!!  Unbelievable.  So making soup wasn’t as crazy an idea as I thought it was when I woke up.  It sounded good.  I’m kind of tired of eating pieces of meat.  So, here is a simple and comforting idea, for a meal on a not-so-nice day!

ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

8 cups chicken stock (recipe below if you want to make your own)
2 chicken tenders
2 cups escarole, kale or spinach, chopped in ribbons (don’t use on PP days)
2 T Parmesan cheese
1 egg or 1/4 cup egg white substitute
salt and pepper

For the meatballs:

1/2 pound of ground meat:  turkey, pork, or beef or any mixture of the three
1 egg or 1/4 egg cup egg white substitute
2 T oat bran
1/4 t onion powder
1/4 t garlic powder
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 t dried parsley
salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients with hands and season with salt and pepper.  Form 2 dozen bite-sized meatballs and bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

Once stock is ready, add the chicken tenders, meatballs and greens and cook for 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked.  Remove chicken from pot, shred with two forks and return chicken to the pot.  Whisk the Parmesan into the egg and slowly drizzle the egg into the stock while swirling the soup with a spoon.

For the stock:

Pour 10 cups of cold water in a pot.  I save all my chicken wing tips for days like this so I can make my own stock.  I just cut the pieces off and throw them into a baggie in the freezer.  Then I boil them in my water for a nice tasty stock.  I also threw in an onion, roughly chopped and made a spice packet by wrapping 2 bay leaves, 6-7 stems and leaves of parsley, 8 peppercorns and 4-5 stems and leaves of fresh thyme in cheesecloth and tying it closed with some kitchen twine.  I boiled all that for about an hour, removed everything and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  Like I said, you don’t have to make your own stock, and this is a very easy shortcut to making “proper” stock, but there’s something satisfying about starting from a pot of water and creating a beautiful bowl of soup from scratch.