Italian Wedding Soup

It is cold up here in Edmonton.  Below freezing cold.  Perfect weather for soup.

I love Italian Wedding Soup.  It doesn't get it's name because it was a staple of any particular marriage ceremony, but from the fact that the flavors often found in this soup and its variations mesh together superbly.

First thing you need to do is make some meatballs.  You could cheat and use pre-made ones, but I don't think that's any fun.  As the base, I used a small onion, chopped quite small, chopped fresh parsley leaves, a couple cloves of minced garlic, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, finely shredded cheese and a beaten egg as the binding agent.  I mixed these all together.

Once I added the lean ground beef (you could also use pork), I mixed it all together with my hands and formed them into small meatballs.

I brought about 12 cups of chicken broth to a boil.  While that was happening, I sliced up a large bunch of fresh spinach into strips.  You could totally just put in as whole leaves, but I like cutting them all up.

Once the broth was boiling, I added the meatballs and let them cook for a while.  You also need pasta for this soup.  My dutch oven wasn't quite big enough to cook the meatballs and the pasta.  So while the meatballs were cooking, I cooked some rotini in another pot.  Once the meatballs were cooked through, I added the spinach, some dried basil, and the leftover fresh parsley.  And once the rotini was cooked, I drained it and added that as well.

Consensus: Italian Wedding Soup for the win!  Plus, leftovers that will last for days.