Further adventures from my kitchen - Italian Wedding Soup

My son plays baseball and for games during the week he has to be at the diamond for 5:30 (or as close as we can possibly make it).  This is not an easy feat with not getting home from work until 4:30, having to eat and pick up a teammate and get to the diamond in Calgary rush hour traffic.  Needless to say this necessitates *gasp* pre-made food on game days.  Last week I wanted something a little different from the things that I would normally pick up so I picked up a can (I know, horrible for me to make canned soup, but what are you gonna do) of Italian Wedding Soup.  I have never had it before and someone I work with has talked about and seems to really like it so I thought I would give it a shot.  It was ok, I was really not that impressed with it but it would do.  My hubby seemed to like it and figured I would be able to make it way better.

On Saturday I grabbed my cookbooks (I have them, I just never use them) to see if I had an actual recipe for this soup.  Not one of my books had it (surprising seeing as one of them is a soup cookbook).  I really wasn't planning on making it that day but when my hunny asked what I was doing he thought it sounded like a wonderful idea for supper.  I went online and did some research as to what went into this soup so that I could make it.  Like all recipes there are 1,000 variations of it but all of them had common ingredients so I went with the simple common ingredients and then twisted it my way.  Didn't even come close to the canned version.  It was AMAZING!!!  Probably the most amazing soup that I have ever made, which is really saying something because my chicken vegetable soup is awfully good.

Here is the recipe:

Italian Wedding Soup (Miranda’s version)

1 cup orzo

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 lb fresh chicken sausage (I used Spolumbo's Spicy Chicken Sausage)

1 large garlic clove, finely chopped

2 boxes low sodium chicken stock

Sea salt, to taste

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

1 5-oz bag baby spinach, chopped

2 small zucchini, cut bite size pieces

1 large shallot, chopped fine

1)     In a large pot cook orzo in water until al dente, drain and rinse in cold water.  Set aside

2)    Cut the casing off of the sausage and form into small bite-sized meatballs.

3)    In soup pot heat oil until shimmering, add the meatballs and cook over med-high until lightly browned (about 4 mins).  Transfer meatballs to a plate.  Add more oil if necessary.  Add garlic, shallot and zucchini to the pot and sauté for a couple of minutes.  Add chicken stock and bring to a simmer.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add meatballs and simmer until cooked through – about 5 minutes.

4)    Add chopped spinach and cooked orzo and cook stirring until spinach is wilted and soup is hot.