The Daily Sentinel’s Annual Soup Day

Last year, we briefly mentioned on this blog that The Daily Sentinel had soup day for the benefit of all our employees. We were surprised at the number of people outside of the office that were actually interested in Soup Day! So, back by popular demand, today is the annual Soup Day event. This year's is even bigger and better and it now benefits a local charity, The Food Bank of The Rockies. There is already a big pile of canned goods accompanying the many many delicious soups. Being the generous Haute Mamas that we are, we will be posting the Soup Day recipes all day today, and for each original recipe we receive we will each donate one can of food. That's three cans a recipe! So, I'll start. First, I gotta say that I'm one of those cooks who looks at the basic ingredients of a recipe and then just starts cooking. I add stuff and eliminate stuff. I experiment. So, I can't tell you EXACTLY how to make this soup but I'll give you a good start. Italian Wedding Soup Base: 2 stalks celery 2 carrots 3/4 of a yellow onion 1 large can chicken broth 1/2 package Asini De Pepi pasta Generous amount of fresh spinach Various Italian spices Salt pepper Meatballs: Equal amounts of ground beef and Italian sausage 2 eggs 1 cup breadcrumbs salt/pepper That's your basic ingredients. Yesterday, I stayed home sick with the boys and boiled a chicken for use later in the week. This meant that my coworkers were benefited by my using fresh chicken stock rather than canned. You by no means need to do this, but if you wish to make your own stock, it makes it extra fatty and yummy. Then I made the meatballs. If I weren't cooking for such a broad audience I may have thrown some other ingredients into them. Feel free to use your own favorite meatball recipe. The hardest part about this soup is rolling little bite sized balls. It's time consuming and boring but well worth it. I've found that if you have the patience you should make as many meatballs as possible. Any that you don't put in the soup can be dropped into a freezer bag and added to some spaghetti dish for use later in the week. That's not what happened at my house though because Soren and I ate just as many meatballs as we put into the soup. I bake meatballs in the oven, but again, feel free to make meatballs any way you want. After the veggies are cooked, add the pasta, and at the last minute add your cooked meatballs and diced spinach. Cook it a little while longer. Add some spices and TA-DA, Italian Wedding Soup. Here are a bunch more recipes for really excellent soups: