Italian Wedding Soup

Italian Wedding Soup

1 pound of ground meat. A combination is fine.

½ cup bread crumbs
½ cup milk
1 large egg
¼ cup parmesan cheese
½ tsp oregano
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

For the soup

½ medium onion diced
2 medium carrots diced
2 ribs celery diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 bay leaf
8 cups of chicken stock
½ cup small pasta – like orzo
4 cups baby spinach
½ cup chopped flat leaf Italian parsley
¼ cup fresh dill – optional

Mix the bread crumbs, milk, spices, egg and cheese together and pour it over the ground meat and mix well. Form into small meatballs and brown in your soup pot. These don’t have to be cooked all the way through because they are going to cook in the soup yet, just brown the outside. Once you have browned the meatballs remove to a plate and add the veggies to the pot and sweat about 5 minutes. At the end of the 5 minutes add the bay leaf and garlic and stir for about 30 seconds and then add the stock. Bring the soup to a boil and turn down to a simmer and simmer 20 minutes. Then add the pasta and meat balls and cook for 10 minutes or until the pasta is tender. Now add the spinach, parsley and dill and cool about 5 minutes longer. This makes 6 hardy bowls of soup and it freezes really well.

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Music Credit: Green Green Garden by Chris Haugen

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Colleen Palumbo
#25 – 1410 11th Ave North
Golden, BC Canada
V0A 1H2
silvermoments65@gmail.com

All video and photographic rights belong to Colleen Palumbo unless otherwise stated.

Hello friends. I don’t know if you can tell or not, but we’re having a really dreary day here today. I hope there’s enough light going on because it is quite dark out. Um, we’ve been raining now for about 12 hours, I think, and you can probably see it coming down on the window behind me. So, today it’s lunchtime right now. In fact, it’s a bit past lunchtime. It’s 12:30. So, I’m going to put on um some soup and I’m going to make an Italian my version of an Italian wedding soup today. And uh it may not be exactly what you’ve seen or done in the past, but um most recipes are quite adaptable, which I hope that’s something that you’ve learned from me along the way. Anyway, I’m going to gather up what I need to get started. We’ll make the meatballs first because I like to brown the meatballs before we make the soup. So, I’ll be right back after this. [Music] Okay. Here in my bigger bowl, I have a mix of hamburger. Now, I’m using half beef, half pork, but you could use any mixture that you like. It doesn’t have to be this one. You could use turkey or chicken or a combination of those two or this or pork and chicken. Whatever you would like to use, you can use for these, which makes it pretty versatile because you may have some of that stuff already in your fridge and not have to go out to get anymore. We need um some breadrumbs. And what did I do with those? They need a half a cup of breadrumbs. Uh, I’m going to do this different way other than adding it all in here. I’m going to mix this up in the smaller bit first, which is what I got it out for, but I got lost there for a second. And I’m going to pour in half a cup of milk. And I think I’ll grab a fork and I’ll give this a bit of a stir. And then I’m going to add an egg. And these are all things to help bind the meatballs together. And I’m going to scramble up this egg really good so that you don’t have any white slimy bits in there. It’s not a very appetizing sounding cooking turn, is it? I’m going to add about a half a teaspoon of oregano soon as I can get into it. I’ll measure it for you. And need some salt. And I’m probably going to add about a half a teaspoon of salt. I don’t want to overseason it because I’m putting some Parmesan cheese in there, too. And I know it can be quite salty. And about a/4 of a teaspoon of black pepper. Now, we’ll mix that in. And I don’t know if you can see, but it’s the bread, the dried bread is starting to absorb the milk, which is exactly what we want it to do. And now I need a/4 of a cup of Parmesan or thereabouts. If you want more, add more. Um, as you can see, mine’s pretty generous is probably a/3 of a cup, but the recipe I’ll leave in the description box below says 1/4 of a cup. Okay, so we’re going to mix this up all together. And that cheese going in there also really thickened it up. Now, we don’t want those meatballs to be too soggy. I am going to grab a little spoon and I’m going to turn on actually might work to grab a tablespoon out of here. And I’m going to turn on my pot on the stove because I’m going to start making uh mix this up and then form the meatballs. And I want that pot on the stove to be getting ready to go. Okay. See, the longer you leave it sit, the more the moisture is absor absorbed by the bread crumbs, which is good. Now, into the hamburger meat it goes into the ground meat. Shouldn’t say hamburger. It’s not all hamburger. Into the ground meat. And I’m just going to chop it a bit first before I get in there with my hands. And I will get in there with my hands because I think it’s the easiest way to mix it thoroughly. And I’m going to have to roll them into little balls. I’ve got my pot over there heating up. My soup pot. It’s on the stove already. I’ve also moved a couple of things over there that we’re going to need. Some broth in a bit and some baby spinach. Okay, maybe I’m not going to have to get in there right away with my hands. I seem to be getting away with it. Getting it mixed up pretty good just doing this. Wow. Well, I hope wherever you guys are in the world today that you’re having um some nice seasonal weather and we’re so entirely grateful that all the rain that we’ve had in the past week has not been snow or we couldn’t see out our windows. It is crazy how much snow we’ve had. I mean, sorry, how much rain we’ve had that could have been snow. Okay, I’m just going to wash my hands quick. Now, let’s get forming some meatballs here. Now, I uh like to have just little meatballs. In fact, these might even be a little too big. And I will quickly buzz through these so that we can move on to the next steps. How many of you have your Christmas trees up already? That’s a question. I do not yet, but I’m aiming to in this coming week get mine up. It seems the season gets by us really quickly. And I feel like my American viewers, because you have Thanksgiving coming up right away, probably there’s a lot of you uh that get your tree up before before Thanksgiving comes along for you so that you can um prolong the holiday season. And I think that’s fabulous. So, these don’t take too much time to roll up. Um, is there other ways to do this? I’m not sure, but I would guess there probably are. Um, I don’t see that it takes a terrific lot of manpower to do these. You could skip frying them. You could actually just drop them into the soup and allow them to cook in the broth. And you could do that, but I think you get more flavor when you’ve brown them in the pot. And then you have all those little bits in the bottom of the pot that you can um scrape into the the um broth of your soup. So, it adds a lot more flavor to what you’re doing. Actually, my think my little tablespoon is working fine here instead of the teaspoon. I’m going at it pretty fast and I stand here in my kitchen to do videos, but you could certainly take this and sit down at the table and click on your favorite show and uh make them beautiful and uniform. I’m kind of scrambling through them, but you wouldn’t have to do that. I try not to um compact the balls too much because then you seem to get a little tougher ball and you want these to be soft and juicy. Just about done. That didn’t take any time at all. Probably if I was put a timer on it, it probably is going to take me three minutes [Music] to roll up these balls. And then I’m going to wash my hands. Well, no. I’m going to go put them in the pot and start them cooking. And then I’ll wash my hands. And I have a little bit left here. Not really enough for a ball. So, let’s pick a tiny ball here and we’ll add to it. Might have been a little generous. Pick up the next one. Okay, I’m still going to wash my hands cuz now I have both of them gloomy. And then I’ll take this over to the stove and I’ll get these started. And while they start to cook, we’ll get on with the veggies part of this dish. Okay. So, I am going to have to work and then go turn over the meatballs. And the meatballs don’t have to be cooked all the way through because they’re going to cook in the soup for a good probably 30 minutes. So, we don’t have to do that. I’m going to just dice up this meat. This is a small onion. Um, and I don’t think you need more than that. We have the what what would you call them? The mirror broth, the base for almost any good soup, which is celery, carrots, and onions. And I’m going to put them in this bowl. And then I’m just going to check on those meatballs and see if they need turned over yet. Not quite. They don’t want to release from the bottom of the pot yet. Which means that they are not quite cooked enough. And so we’re going to just leave them just a minute longer. In the meantime, I’m going to open up this celery. I am going to dice it up and we’ll put that in our vegetable bowl. [Music] Then we’ll move on to the carrots. [Music] I’m so happy with my new sharp knives. Don’t know why I put it off so long. [Music] I think I need this under my board because it wants to take off on me. Let’s do that now that I’m almost finished. And I’ll just clean up these carrots. You could if these were uh fresher carrots or if they came from your own garden. I I don’t see why you couldn’t breathe the stems on them. I am not pureeing any of this. So, I want to make sure that I have a nice finish on my carrots. Now, those all sound like they’re ready to be turned over. Okay, we’ve got them all turned over. So, I’m coming back to the veg. We will get these. I am going to quarter these or thereabouts and then I’m going to dice them up. I’m not going to worry too much about the size of the dice. I’m just trying to uh dice them in such a way that uh they’ll all cook about the same time. And there we go. [Music] And have I said how happy I am that I’ve gotten my knife as sharp. It sure makes this job a lot easier. [Music] [Music] There we go. Now, I am going to add some herbs to this dish as we go along. Um, so I think I’ll start getting those ready. While those meatballs cook on the other side, I’m going to mince up two cloves of garlic. And I’m going to cut up some fresh parsley and fresh fresh dill. [Music] That’s about two teaspoons or thereabout. Maybe one tablespoon. And let’s grab up the parsley. I’m using flat leaf Italian parsley because it is good for cooking with where the curly is more for garnishes. You’ll find a flat leaf has a much better flavor to it too. Doesn’t taste quite so much like grass. Um, and it can really add something. Okay, I’m going to do the same with some dill. I’m just going to break some off. And I’m going to chop it all at the same time. And I’m not measuring this. Um, I would say for the parsley, I probably had a half a cup pulled off here before I added any dill to it. Oh, this smells so good. And just going to run through it maybe a couple of times. And I think it’s almost time to take the meatballs out and get the veg in. So, this goes by pretty quickly, this soup. [Music] And I’m also working today with some orzo for the pasta. So, I think I’ve got just about everything all ready. make the switcheroo. I’m going to grab the uh balls out of the pot and then I’m going to bring you to the stove so that you can see what’s going on over there. So, here’s the balls I’ve brought out of the pot and now I’m headed over to the stove and we’re going to start sweating off these vegetables and moving on to the next steps in this soup. So, we’re just going to sweat these vegetables off again because they’re going to be cooking. We are not trying to cook them all the way through. We’re just trying to soften them a bit. And I’ve turned up the stove a little bit because I had it turned down a bit for the meatballs. So, this will hurry this up a little bit. And but I do want to give them at least a couple minutes to soften. So, have you guys got a favorite soup? One that you make on a rainy day like today or one that uh brings good memories or memories of your mom or grandma making soup in the kitchen? Well, this is a delicious soup and it has a few more ingredients than I usually work with, but it’s certainly not difficult to do. And now I am going to gather everything up close to me so that we can move on. I’m going to drop this bay leaf in before I forget it sitting over there. [Music] This is starting to soften up. So I am going to add the garlic right now. Let me get it in here. I didn’t want to add it right away because garlic can tend to scorch. And we definitely don’t need it doing that. But now we want to definitely give it an opportunity to get um fragrant, which I got to smell it already. Wow. Now I’m going to add the stock. I’m adding two quarts of stock or 2 lers for my Canadian friends. And this is where you should use the best stock you can afford. Um, if you have homemade stock, definitely use it here. I uh I don’t have any homemade stock right now, so I am using stock from the store. that this stock has no salt added because I want to be able to control the amount of salt that’s in the dish and add it as I need it. But um if I were to uh use a stock that had salt in it, I wouldn’t add salt to the meatballs or not as much for sure cuz I think I added a half a teaspoon of salt to the meatballs. Now we are going to let this come to a boil and we are going to boil it for 20 minutes before we uh start to move on to the next part of this dish. Okay folks, I’ve just tasted that and I adjusted the seasoning in there. It was lacking salt for sure. So, I have added a half a teaspoon of salt. And that’s uh definitely brightened it up a bit. And now I’m adding half a teaspoon of orzo, but you could use any small pasta. Did I say half a teaspoon? A half a cup. I’m going to add a half a cup of a small pasta to this pot. And I’m going to give that a whirl around so to make sure that the pasta isn’t going to stick to the bottom of the pot. And then I am going to add the meatballs back to this. And I am going to let it cook about 10 minutes or until the pasta is cooked through. So, back in go the meatballs and any juices that might still be on the plate cuz we don’t want to miss any flavor. I’m going to give it a gentle stir cuz I don’t want to break up the meatballs. I also want to make sure again that the uh pasta isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pot. So, we’re going to bring that back up to a boil and we’re going to just simmer it for the next 10 minutes. We need the pasta to cook, but we don’t want a full rolling boil because that might break apart the meatballs as well. Not that it really matters at this point. Um, but traditionally, I guess the meatball is an important part of Italian wedding soup. I’m looking for the flavor. So, I will bring you back when we’re in 10 minutes time when we’re ready to add the herbs and the baby greens. Today, I’m using uh spinach greens, but you could definitely use whatever uh green you like. This is a baby spinach. I love using spinach, but I do not like these pokey ends. So, the 10 minutes that this is cooking, I’m going to be cutting ends off of them. I know it’s a silly thing, but it’s my silly thing. Well, I’ve just tested the pasta and the pasta is cooked. So, now it’s time to move on with the other ingredients, the last of them to go into this soup. I’m adding about four cups of spinach that I have mostly taken all the stems off of. It’s a bit of a tedious job, but I do not like to get a stem stuck in my mouth when I am eating spinach. So, it’s one of those, you know, crazy quirky things that some people Yeah, it’s me. I’m those people. And now I’m adding the parsley. And I’m adding the dill. And I’m going to give it a good stir. And I am going to just let this sweat down that spinach a little bit. And then this is ready for serving. I’ll see you back at the counter. Oh my gosh, smells so good in here. And I am about to scoop out some soup for lunch. And I know Gina was going to enjoy this as much as I am. And I’m going to change spoons. I just wanted to get some meatballs in there. And now I’m going to add the broth and veggies. And oh, I can hardly wait to eat. This is what it looks like, folks. It is a delicious soup. I’m just going to sprinkle the tiniest little bit of Parmesan on the top. I just want flavor, but I don’t want to give it too much more salt because I’ve salted it to what I believe is perfection. I’m going to move this out of the way so that you can see what I’m up to. There it is, folks. It’s a perfect soup for a day like today when the heavens have opened up and it’s pouring down rain and there’s not a thing you can do outside and you need a good hearty meal. And this is definitely a good hearty one. I hope that you’ve enjoyed coming along with me on today’s video and if you have that you’ll consider sharing it on your social media or share it with your friends. Give it a like and comment. I enjoy reading your comments and I try to get back to everybody who comments. So, thank you very much and I look forward to seeing you again really soon on the next video. Take care everyone. Bye-bye.