Private Benjamin, Friends and Rosemary Asparagus Soup

There's a scene in the 1980 movie "Private Benjamin" where Goldie Hawn's character, Judy, while marching through the mud and rain during basic training, aches for her former spoiled life and whines, "I want to go out to lunch!"

I may not exactly whine about it, but I rank "going out to lunch" as one of life's best simple pleasures.

Mr. Rosemary will go out to lunch with me if it's just part of a day-long shopping outing, but it's just fuel for him. So, going out to lunch has become a "girly" thing for me.

Throughout my cancer treatment, I've been lucky that my girlfriends have been happy to oblige. We developed a nice little habit: The day before my chemo treatment, when I was likely to feel my best, was "go out to lunch" day. Mostly we just sampled local restaurants. We included a movie matinee a couple times or maybe a bit of shopping. (Don't go to a brand new restaurant two days after it opens! Give them some time to work out the kinks!)

But once, we had a lovely lunch at a friend's -- Mary's -- home.  The main course was a rich and creamy asparagus soup. There was a strawberry and spinach salad, warm bread with little pats of butter, fresh flowers on the table, a chocolate cake for dessert, all on the hostess's vintage china. Perfect.

(And who forgot to take pictures?!?)

It was Susie's soup that stole the show for me.  Not only did I have seconds then and there, I got to take the leftovers home. (Did I share, you wonder? Of course not.)

I've had cream of asparagus soup before, but this was special. At first, I thought maybe because it was because Susie used her own asparagus. But when she gave me the recipe, I saw it had rosemary in it. Usually, rosemary is pretty potent -- (not me, silly, the herb) -- even in small doses, but it lent a subtle flavor that didn't overpower at all.  More perfect.

The cast of characters at our ladies' lunches has varied, but thank you Mary, Susie, Connie, Liz, Missy, Lindsay, Rose and Katie.  Thank you for helping me forget, even for a few hours, that I was a "cancer patient." For a few hours, I was just one of the girls.  And that made me feel special.

Rosemary Asparagus Soup
from Susie McLaughlin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 15.5 ounce can white beans, drained
1 pound fresh asparagus, chopped (save tips)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pound crisp bacon, chopped (for garnish)
Parmesan cheese (for garnish)

Heat olive oil in a large skillet and cook onion, garlic and rosemary until softened. Add butter and flour and cook until flour is dissolved.

Mix broth, white beans, asparagus, cream, salt and pepper into onion mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until asparagus is tender, abut 10 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and let mixture cool. Pour soup in batches into blender or food processor until smooth. Then pour through strainer. Steam the asparagus tips in a little water in microwave and add to soup before serving. Heat on low before serving. Sprinkle with cheese and bacon.

Is It Vichyssoise or Potato Leek Soup?

Mr. Rosemary strolled through the kitchen, spied the leeks on the counter and asked, "Whatcha makin'?"

"Potato and leek soup for lunch," I said.

"You mean Vichyssoise?"

The man surprises me all the time. How could someone who confuses broccoli and cauliflower ("What's the white one?") know that potatoes + leeks = Vichyssoise?

Technically, I don't like Vichyssoise because -- technically --Vichyssoise is served cold, and, although I like to drink a cold smoothie, I want to eat my warm soup with a spoon.

I should like Vichyssoise because, according to Mr. Rosemary, if it has any semblance of something "foreign," I'm gonna love it. But Vichyssoise isn't really French; Potage Parmentier is.  Read on.

Vichyssoise was created by a French chef, Louis Diat, while he was working at the Ritz Carlton in New York in the early 20th century.

Apparently, in the days before air conditioning, the Ritz had a Japanese roof garden and Diat was searching for a something that would cool his customers in the blistering summer heat. He remembered the peasant dish, a potato soup, his mother had made when he was a boy. He and his familywould cool the soup by adding milk to it.  So he prepared this same cold soup and called it "creme vichyssoise" after a famous spa near his boyhood home. A welcome treat by his summer patrons, by popular demand he placed it on the menu full-time in 1923.

Although you won't find Vichyssoisse on a French menu, Potage Parmentier, Vichysoisse's cousin, is definitely French, and was popularized in America thanks to Julia Child and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

This soup is deceptively hearty. And it's definitely adaptable: You can use your immersion blender and make it smooth, even more so, if you strain it. Or you can add cooked bacon or ham to it to satisfy any carnivore predilections.

But I like it a little chunky with the bits of lumps in it, mashing the potatoes a bit.

There's only one problem with this soup and that's working with the leeks. First of all, they're inconvenient. They take up a lot of space and they're pretty dirty. No quick rinse will do -- they need a thorough washing to make sure you get all the bits of sandy dirt from between the layers.

But that bit of effort is worth it. Mais oui?


Potato Leek Soup
Adapted from several sources: 
Once Upon A Chef, The Splendid Table,  Serious Eats
Makes about 6 servings

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 leeks, white and light green parts only, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 pounds potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
7 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1 thyme sprigs
3 whole bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup half and half

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add the leeks and garlic and cook, stirring regularly, until soft and wilted, about 10 minutes. Adjust the heat as necessary so as not to brown.
Add the potatoes, stock, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper to pot and bring to a boil. Cover and turn the heat down to low. Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are very soft.
Fish out the thyme sprig and bay leaves, then purée the soup with a hand-held immersion blender until smooth. Or, you can just slightly mash, as I did, with the back of a wooden spoon or a hand-held masher) Add the half and half and bring to a simmer. Taste and add sal t and pepper to your liking. Garnish with some chopped herbs, just to make it pretty.

Red Lentil Soup | National Homemade Soup Day

Any day -- especially a gray, wintry day -- is a good day to make soup in my book. Tell me that it's National Homemade Soup Day, and I'm all over it.

It's not just the eating of it that's comforting, it's in the making, too. There's the first couple minutes of the butter melting, then the onions softening, then the warm aroma of the spices joining the party, the satisfying pleasure of stirring, the familiar awe when something creamy deliciousness evolves from nearly nothing. Every sense is touched. The process itself is soothing.

I don't have much experience cooking with lentils. Only once or twice have I made soup with the brown lentils I found at the supermarket. And it was met with a murky, sidelong glance from Mr. Rosemary. About the same reaction I got from split pea soup.

So it was a bold move I made when I picked up a bag of red lentils at Trader Joe's on one of my semi-annual trips to the "city."  Maybe it was the color he didn't like, I thought to myself.

Still, that pretty bag of coral colored beans sat in the pantry for several months. I hid them behind a bag of rice so they wouldn't chastise me any more. Then one day I relented.

I was naive enough to believe that the red lentils would remain a pretty color when they cooked. But they weren't brown nor green, so I was still on safe ground. I also -- although I didn't write it in the recipe below -- added about a cup of cubed sausage, knowing full well my life partner does not deem beans a fair substitute for meat.

The curry added just a nice dash of sweet spiciness to the soup and the coconut milk, as you'd expect, the right amount of creaminess.

Mr. Rosemary had seconds.

Red Lentil - Coconut Milk Soup
Adapted from Good Food Matters
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup diced onion
2 carrots, about 1/2 cup, diced
2 stalks celery, about 1/2 cup, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1 cup red lentils
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 14-ounce can whole coconut milk

In a large pot, over medium heat, add the butter and olive oil. Stir in onions, carrots, celery and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes. Add the curry powder and cook for about 1 minute. Add the lentils and 3 cups of chicken broth and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Add the red pepper flakes and the coconut milk. Cover and simmer about 10 minutes and serve.

Something from Nothing | Refrigerator Soup

Way back when, a college friend was bragging to me about his mother's cooking and how much he missed it. (This is while we're wolfing down pizza and beer.) So I asked him what his mother made best, what did he miss the most. 

I was expecting him to get teary eyed over his mother's lasagna or her chocolate chip cookies or maybe her roast chicken or French silk pie. He thought for a long time before he finally answered and said, "Nothing in particular, really. She was just able to whip up something from nothing in no time at all. And it was always good.

"She'd just go into the fridge, gather a few things up, and -- Bingo! -- half an hour later, there'd be something delicious on the table."

Guess Rachel Ray had nothing on Mrs. Schwartz.

One of my favorite blogs to read (and cook from) is The Savoury Table by +Karen Harris. Something she does regularly is write a post about "something from nothing" -- those times when you just pull something together from what's on hand between the pantry and the fridge. That's where creativity happens, backed up perhaps by a bit of experience.

So, taking a lesson from Karen, I made this soup. It has a whole bunch of leftovers: leftover macaroni and cheese, some bacon left over from breakfast (imagine!) that went into the mac 'n cheese, and roasted broccoli from dinner the night before. Some chicken broth and a couple dollops of Greek yogurt pulled it all together in a soup that probably won't be repeated. 

Every couple weeks, a neighbor boy comes over for a cooking lesson. We've been doing this for about two years now. We've made all kinds of things, sweet and savory.  Meatballs, breaded chicken, cookie dough cupcakes, hand pies, beer bread, potato salad, pretzels. You name it, we've probably made it. He's learned how to measure correctly, to wash hands repeatedly, to chop, to saute, to make a roux. 

But every once in a while, when I run out of good ideas, lessons that can be taught in about an hour and a half, I'll wonder aloud, "What shall we cook this week?"

More than once, Mr Rosemary has said, "Why don't you teach him to make soup?"

"We've made soup," I've said. "We made wedding soup, white chicken chili, chicken tortilla soup."

"Not like that," he said. "You know, like you do. Something from nothing."

I'll have to think on that. 

In the meantime, my "refrigerator soup" was a great warmer upper on a snowy day.

Spring Is Late? Have Some Stuffed Pepper Soup

There's no use complaining about the weather, is there?  Still, we do.

After living in western Pennsylvania for most of my life, I should be used to long and cold  winters. And I guess I am.

Usually, come February, I ache to be able to mow the yard or weed the garden. (Let's see if I remember that in June.)

And now it's the end of March, and we're still mucking frozen horse sh*t in the barn every morning and pounding frozen water out of the drinking buckets.

Enough is enough. It has been one, l-o-o-o-n-g winter. And so, we complain. Mr. Rosemary said:

   "We just have two seasons: winter and non-winter."

Let's just suck it up and remind ourselves that spring will come. Or maybe we'll just go straight into summer.

At any rate, these cold days are great excuses to make hearty, comforting soups -- like this stuffed pepper soup.

I have to admit, I'd never made stuffed pepper soup before, mostly because Mr. Rosemary isn't a fan of stuffed peppers in the first place. I reasoned, though, if he likes chili, he's got to like this, too.

He loved it. And while it was good,  I thought it needed a little something more. I've been advised, though, not to change a thing.

And so I won't.

        


Stuffed Pepper Soup
adapted from All Recipes
makes about 8 servings

2 pounds ground beef (or turkey; I used a mix of ground beef and venison)
1 green pepper, chopped
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce                     }I used the equivalent of my own
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice  }tomato sauce which is pretty chunky!
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 cups cooked white rice
Shredded cheddar cheese, for serving

In a soup pot or Dutch oven, brown the meat over medium heat for about 5 minutes and drain off any fat.

Add the chopped pepper and onion and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the they're softened.  Add all the remaining ingredients -- except the rice -- and simmer, covered for at least 20 or 30 minutes. Then add the cooked rice and heat through. Serve topped with shredded cheddar cheese.

Green Soup for a Post Valentine's Day Cure

If you were looking for any kind of chocolate, red velvet, caramel-ly, sugary, sweet something on the internet these past couple weeks, you sure didn't have to go very far. The world has been having one major love affair with Valentine's treats.

I'm still doing battle with the love handles my Christmas indulgences fed!

I  had my share of sweet treats this past weekend, so now it's back to a more healthy routine. Although I'm not exactly saintly about it, I am going to the gym at least three days a week and eating more mindfully.

Still, it's taking more effort than it used to. No one ever warned me about the toll a slowing metabolism would have on my waistline. The experts recommend an hour of exercise a day for a woman my age just to maintain weight. I still want to shed a few!

Losing weight is always a problem for someone like me who likes to cook  -- and who likes to eat! This metabolism thing is pretty aggravating.

So as a public service, I'm offering you this gem of a green soup as a great way to -- yes, get your greens -- get filled up and still have the satisfaction of cooking and stirring and concocting great food.

I  have to admit I was surprised how much I really, really like this soup. It's more than good for you. It really does taste good. And it's fun to make. And that's important to a cook.

Slowly caramelizing the onions is key to the soup.

The secret is the slow preparation of the onions which, aside from the greens themselves and a handful of rice, are the only thing that add bulk to the soup. That, plus the zing of a bit of cayenne and a splash of lemon juice, makes it special.

I was a slow convert to this green soup. My sister convinced me. She's a great cook and I trust her instincts -- and taste.

After one trial, I was hooked. I'm usually a little slow at joining popular food trends. By the time I'm catching on, the fad is passe.

I know that green smoothies are very popular, for instance. But they have no appeal to me because I'm more of a soup lover. Warm it up and I'll have it. Eating cold, pureed greens -- even sweetened with fruit -- just isn't for me.

The green soup pre-puree!

This green soup, however, is one that's going to be a new classic in my kitchen.  (Note that I have not included Mr. Rosemary as a new fan.)

You do need an immersion blender to simplify the making of this soup. You can use a regular blender, but that really complicates things and makes too many dishes to clean up for just a soup. Get an immersion blender, please.

Anna Thomas created the recipe and says that you should get the soup perfectly smooth. I've never been able to get it perfectly smooth.I also tried to make a picture of my soup garnished with olive oil, as in the picture below. But my drizzle ended up looking like a silly smiley face, so I nixed it.The only substitution I made was using kale instead of chard. I do imagine that any kind of green, or mix of greens, would be great.

Did I mention that there's only 99 calories for a 1 1/2 cup serving? You're welcome.

Now, off to the gym . . . .

photo from Eating Well

                               


Basic Green Soup
slightly adapted from Eating Well 
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 large yellow onions, chopped
1 teaspoon salt, divided
2 tablespoons plus 3 cups water, divided
1/4 1 big bunch kale, about 1 pound, thick stalks trimmed
14 cups gently packed baby spinach (about a 12 ounce bag)
4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup arborio rice
Big pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice, or more, if you like

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the chopped onions and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, add 2 tablespoons water and cover. Cook, stirring frequently until the pan cools down, and then occasionally, always covering the pan again, until the onions are greatly reduced and have a deep caramel color, 25 to 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the remaining 3 cups water and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a soup pot. Add the rice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes.
When the rice has cooked for 15 minutes, add the trimmed kale greens. Return to a simmer,; cover and cook for 10 minutes. When the onions have caramelized, add them to the rice, along with the spinach, broth and cayenne pepper. Return to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring once, until the spinach is tender but still bright green, about 5 minutes more.
Puree the soup in the pot with an immersion blender, or in a regular blender in batches. Stir in the lemon juice. Taste and add more lemon juice if you'd like. Garnish each serving of soup with a drizzle of olive oil

Makes about 8 servings, 1 1/2 cups each

Nuts to Soup | Roasted Chestnut Soup with Thyme Cream

I never imagined that I'd be making soup from nuts -- I always thought of nuts as an additive, a very nice additive, but not the main part of anything, except for snacking. (And maybe my favorite pistachio ice cream.) But I've learned that chestnut soup is a very traditional fall soup, and a staple at many a Thanksgiving table.

It's a great soup.  It's rich, smooth and creamy, without cream. It gets its richness straight from the sweet chestnuts, which, I also learned is low in calories and has all kinds of other good things going for them, like they're the only nut that has Vitamin C. And they're gluten-free.

The only bad thing I can say about this recipe is that roasting and peeling the nuts is a bit of a chore. But it's worth the effort and certainly can be done ahead of time.

We're lucky to have a neighbor who gave us a couple chestnut tree saplings that finally bore fruit last year.  This was not a good year for our own trees but our neighbor still shared some of his.

The original recipe called for bottled chestnuts, which I've never even looked for in a store.  But at this time of year, chestnuts show up in many produce departments.

I  first posted this recipe about a year ago when I guest posted at Eat Yourself Skinny.  And I realized I never posted it here. So here you go . . . .



Roasted Chestnut Soup with Thyme Cream
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 10 servings

3 cups whole roasted (or bottled) chestnuts
2 cups chopped yellow onion
3/4 cup thinly sliced carrot
1 Tbsp olive oil
6 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
5/8 tsp. kosher salt, divided
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons sherry (optional)
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme leaves

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Prepare the chestnuts.  Cut an X in the bottom of each chestnut. Place chestnuts on a jelly-roll pan and bake for 15 minutes.  Place chestnuts in large bowl and cool to room temperature. When cool enough to handle, peel the shells from the chestnuts.  (If you can find bottled or vacuum packed chestnuts, no need for this step!)

Prepare the puree.  Combine onion, carrot and oil on same jelly-roll pain.  Toss to coat the vegetables.  Bake for 1/2 hour or until tender, stirring occasionally.  Add the chestnuts in bowl and stir in broth.  Pour half the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour the pureed mixture into a large pot.  Repeat procedure with remaining broth mixture.  Or, if you're lucky enough to have an immersion blender, put everything into the large pot and puree it all at once in the pot.  Stir in the 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper.  Place pot over medium high heat and bring to a simmer, then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Add the sherry, if you like.

Prepare the whipped cream.  Place cream in medium bowl and beat with a hand mixer at high speed until soft peaks form.  Add remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and beat at high speed until stiff peaks form.

Serve.  Ladle soup into bowls and top serving with about a teaspoon of whipped cream.  Sprinkle with thyme and serve.

Is This a Red Pasta e Fagioli?

Although I don't think I've ever met a soup I didn't like -- at least, not yet! -- my two all-time favorites are wedding soup and this soup, pasta e fagioli.  When I learned that Mr. Rosemary also loved pasta e fagioli, I was in heaven. I think part of my affection for it is that it just sounds so very authentically Italian!

He told me that it was his favorite lunch at a restaurant he often went to back when he was working in the city.  In Pittsburgh, an Italian restaurant close to his office was (and still is I guess) Costanza's.  He and his friend Rich (always at Rich's initiative, I'm sure; fast food would have kept Mr. Rosemary content)  would often walk the half-block (!) to this cozy little restaurant and always have pasta e fagioli.  I'm sure it was also Rich's suggestion that got Mr. Rosemary to try something like this.

Mr. Rosemary raved about it.  So, of course, I made it at home. The first time I made it, it was too brown and not thick enough.  I tried again.  Still, not the same.  So I'd quiz him.  It was close to an interrogation under a naked light bulb.  I'd fire away:   did it have white beans or red beans, what kind of pasta, did it have meat, any veggies.  I'd try again.  Closer, he'd say, but it wasn't quite "red enough."

Now I ask you -- is the soup in this picture red?  Although he said it was good, very good, it was just not the same.  So I'm torn:  shall I continue on my quest to duplicate his memory?  Or just be satisfied that I had made a very good soup that we both liked?  (Yes, I know the answer.)

I'm especially glad that I made this yesterday, because there's a big spring snow storm coming overnight and this will be ready for us.  And I thought maybe this was too much for spring!

Pasta e Fagioli
adapted from Rachael Ray
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 slices bacon
2 whole sprigs rosemary
1 whole sprigs of thyme
2 sage leaves
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 medium carrot, chopped fine
1 stalk celery, chopped fine
4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
salt and pepper
2 15 ounce cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup tomato sauce
1 quart chicken stock
12 cups cooked small shells
shards of Parmesan and chopped Italian parsley to garnish

Heat olive oil in a deep soup pot over medium high heat and add bacon.  (If I  would have had pancetta, I would have used it.)  Brown the bacon and add the herbs, chopped vegetables and garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.   Cook the vegetables until softened.  Add the beans, tomato sauce and stock and reduce heat to medium low.  Let simmer for about five minutes.  Remove the stems of the herbs and add the cooked pasta.  Ladle into bowls and top servings with cheese and parsley.  Makes about 6 servings.

Wedding Soup Fed My Christmas Soul

It’s not that I didn’t want to go visit my mother-in-law that day.  I love to visit her.  She’s a delightful woman and has always been generous and loving to me.  But when Mr. Rosemary said he wanted to go visit his mother that day, I was grateful he couldn’t see my face because I’m sure it looked pretty sour (and he can always read exactly what I’m thinking.) 

And what I was thinking was this:  “How can he possibly think I have time to do that?  This is the first day in a string of ten or twelve that we didn’t have something important we had to get done, somewhere we had to go, all priorities higher than Christmas.   I needed this day to get ready!   Doesn’t he realize that the kids were coming this weekend for our Christmas together and the house was a wreck and there was so much to get done, so fast – decorating, shopping, cleaning, cooking, baking, wrapping!  Has he gone bonkers?”

“Go by yourself,” I wanted to say.

But from a deep somewhere, instead of blurting anything like that out loud, I found a little voice of calm and reason that reminded me, “It will all get done. You know it will. You’ll figure out a way.”   And even though I know she would love a quiet little tete a tete with him, I knew he wanted me to come along, too.
  

In the midst of this private conversation, I got a brilliant idea:  I’d make soup for lunch, wedding soup, one of her favorites and mine.  I could be in the kitchen making the soup while he and she had a nice visit in the next room.  I could picture it already.   I quickly did a mental inventory, decided I had enough of what I needed and told Mr. Rosemary my idea.  He agreed. So, I packed up the stuff and off we went.  A half-hour later, I was in her kitchen rolling little meatballs and they were chatting away.

Then, we all sat down to lunch and had a nice visit all together.  I cleaned up and we went back home.  On the way home, Mr. Rosemary said, “That was a nice day.”

And I had to agree.  Yes, it was.

Now that the biggest part of the holiday hustle and bustle is over (and everything I wanted to get done did indeed get done), I can reflect and honestly say that of all the sweet moments I had sharing Christmas hospitality with friends and family that day I didn't want to happen somehow was the sweetest.  Genuine, spontaneous, and warm.

I hope you had a special Christmas moment, too.

  * * * * *

I often make wedding soup. But with a lot of flexibility. I can make it without a recipe, although sometimes I get pretty elaborate.  Sometimes it’s very simple.  The batch I made that day was somewhere in between.   I often will make up a whole bunch of meatballs, stick them on a cookie sheet to freeze, then bag them for later; this time I made them fresh.  I also usually poach the meatballs in the broth but some people prefer to bake them first.  There’s a minor argument in the family about what pasta shape to use.  I’m a traditionalist and prefer acini di pepe, although I did use orzo in the batch pictured.  And I have used rice.  Some people in the family prefer bigger ditalini or even shells.  The only requirement is some kind of pasta.  Some people like chicken pieces, some don’t.  Escarole, chard,spinach, just some green. Maybe carrots, celery and onions.  Ideally you should cook the pasta separately then pour the soup over the warm pasta.  (Otherwise the pasta absorbs all the broth.)  The version I made that day was an marriage of some of all of these.  And it was smaller than usual, enough for a threesome lunch and leftovers for Gigi.

One day I’ll post about my elaborate way; in the meantime, here’s my simpler version:

A Simple Wedding Soup

Makes about 8 servings

For the Meatballs

½ pound ground beef

½ - ¾  cup seasoned dry bread crumbs, moistened with a little milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

½ small onion, grated

2 cloves finely chopped garlic

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese grated

For the Soup:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 carrots, cleaned and finely chopped

2 stalks celery, clean and finely chopped

½ onion, finely chopped

1 46 ounce can of chicken broth

½ box frozen chopped spinach

½ cup acini di pepe

Extra Parmesan cheese, for serving

Combine all the ingredients for the meatballs.  (Add more crumbs if the mix is too wet.) Shape into small balls, no more than one inch in diameter.  Set aside.

In a large pot, heat the oil.  Cook the carrots, celery and onion just until softened.  Add the broth.  Bring to a boil then add the spinach, acini di pepe and meatballs.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook  until meatballs are done and pasta is tender, about 20 minutes.  Sprinkle each serving with cheese.

Cook's note:  I use a serrated knife and a bit of muscle to cut the box of frozen spinach in half and quickly put one half in a baggie and back in the freezer.