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Italian Wedding Soup

April 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

So I accidentally almost killed my husband tonight! I may have not been as careful as I could/should have been with some shrimp shells and they ended up in his bowl. So, note to self: prepare seafood more carefully in the future. Some food blogger I am!

Ha, and speaking of being a less than awesome blogger: I was too busy hanging out with my friend Sarah while making this soup to take any pictures of the process. This means that not only will you be getting a shorter than normal post [I'm not sure why; let's call it laziness?] but only one picture of the end product. What a cruel, cruel world it is. But it’s not really, because this soup is tasty and pretty easy to make on a work night.

Italian Wedding Soup

For the meatballs:

1 pound ground turkey
3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 egg, scrambled
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano
1/8 cup milk
1 or 2 cloves of garlic (to taste), minced
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together all of the ingredients until thoroughly combined. Form into golf ball size [I use a cookie dough scooper] and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 25 minutes until browned and cooked all the way through.

For the soup:

10 cups chicken stock
1 cup dry white wine
3 carrots, diced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 Parmesan rind
3/4 – 1 cup orzo, to preference
1/2 bunch kale, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Add the carrots and cook for 3 – 4 minutes, until softened, then add in the oregano and basil and heat until fragrant. Next add in the liquids and rind, and let come up to a simmer. Allow the soup to simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point, you’re ready to add the pasta into the soup dry or already cooked; if you add it dry, be prepared to add in more liquids upon reheating leftovers as the orzo will soak up most of it. Add in the meatballs and kale, then let everything come back up to a simmer again for another 10 minutes. Serve immediately, with Parmesan cheese grated on top.

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The weather outside is weather…

February 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

And what weather it is. Goddamn New England. I don’t understand why our weather is such absolute crap; cold one minute, warm-ish the next but only enough to melt some ice, then cold again to make more godforsaken ice. Jesus. I should probably stop being blasphemous, seeing as how it’s Ash Wednesday and my poor mother-in-law is probably horrified. Especially since this week’s blog is about a recipe she gave me.

As part of the delicious Christmas dinner she cooked for us, she made Venus de Milo soup. I had never heard of it before, but it’s one of my husband’s favorites. And since he is her favorite son, she made it for the holiday [note: I'm sure she loves both of her delightful sons equally]. It’s an extreme comfort food; a rich, meaty broth peppered with diced vegetables and pasta, topped with Parmesan cheese. How can you go wrong?

Not a lot of pictures for this one – you know how I feel about soup and it’s unattractiveness.

Venus de Milo Soup
1 pound ground beef or sirloin
48 oz chicken broth
1 pkg. onion soup mix
2 large ribs celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1/2 an onion, diced*
1/2 cup orzo
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper to taste
grated Parmesan cheese for topping
* this is not in the original recipe, but I can’t help adding unnecessary steps.

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, brown meat. Add in the Worcestershire sauce, celery, carrots and onions and let vegetables soften. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the onion soup mix and chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 20 minutes. Add orzo, cook an additional 8 – 10 minutes. Season again with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce if necessary. Serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

That’s it; a bunch of simple ingredients, but they come together really well. I’ve also looked at various website and have seen other variations on this soup – different vegetables, adding in diced tomatoes, different broths, etc. There’s a million ways you can prepare this, but I’m pretty sure all of them are going to be tasty.

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Hot & Sour Soup … for the SOUL.

September 14, 2009 By 30 Comments

Why is it that only chicken soup is for your soul? I mean, this hot and sour soup is ten times better than any chicken soup I’ve had in recent memory. It’s got a great heat and tang to it, and it’s so warm and comforting. Plus, I made it when I was sick [I hate you, New England weather] two weeks ago and it cleared my sinuses like whoa.

Only a picture of the finished product, because I swear, there’s only so many diced/sliced/chopped vegetable pictures I can show you before I start feeling silly. Plus, as it turns out, bamboo shoots don’t photograph that well.

I only discovered my love of hot and sour about five or six years ago, when the husband took me to The Island Hopper when we were first dating and I was in the city visiting him. It was so good – velvety in a way that chicken noodle soup only wishes it was, ten thousand times more flavorful, and again with the sinus clearing. [Sorry, but it's true!]

The soup is also ridiculously easy to make and can easily be made on the stove top or in a slow cooker. The first time I made it was in the slow cooker, but last time was just a quick 45 minutes on the stove top.

Also, this is in no way a traditional hot and sour soup; it, like everything else I make, is a bastardized version of the original. The recipe has most of the traditional components, but isn’t quite the same.

Hot & Sour Soup:

4 cups chicken broth
1/2 pound of chicken, poached, then shredded
1/2 package of button mushrooms, sliced
1 small can bamboo shoots, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes to reduce bitterness, then cut into thin strips
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 – 2 teaspoons chili paste
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons fish sauce

Everything goes into the pot at once and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I wish I had complicated instructions, but I got nothin’. Now, the first time I made this soup, I used 1 teaspoon chili paste, and I thought it could have used more heat. With 2 teaspoons, the heat was nearly all you got when you first tasted the soup, so maybe start with 1.5 and go from there; for me, the 2 teaspoons was perfect, but the husband thought it was too hot and had to add more vinegar to his to balance it out. The fish sauce really adds a nice depth of flavor, plus it got it closer to the color I’m used to seeing in restaurant hot and sour soup.

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