Zuppa del giorno - Italian Wedding Soup

I never realized how much I loved and appreciated my mother until I attempted her world famous Italian Wedding Soup. Whew! Let's just say that I am not an extraordinarily patient person. If you're anything like me, I would highly suggest opening a bottle of wine while you are making this soup. (At the very least, enjoy a glass while you are patiently rolling out the millions of tiny meatballs.) I guess it's no wonder my mom had only a tiny bit of patience for me and my three little brothers. I'm realizing how that most of her patience was used on making this soup for us multiple times a month.

But, before I get to the recipe portion of today's post, let me just explain a few things: When I had dinner with my boyfriend's family the other night, they said "What is Italian Wedding Soup?" I guess because my mom has made this soup since before I can remember I just assumed that everyone's family has homemade wedding soup every time the weather dropped below 60 degrees. Guess not. Okay so for those of you who aren't sure what Italian Wedding Soup is, let me explain in the simplest way possible: Chicken noodle soup, minus the noodles, plus meatballs, rice, and greens. I think that about sums it up. BUT it's so much more flavorful. And for me, it brings back so many more memories of home.

One more thing to explain: You don't have to be going to a wedding, be getting married, or even be married to enjoy this soup. In fact, the term "wedding soup" is a mistranslation of the Italian language, minestra maritata (or "married soup"). The dish was so named because it marries together green vegetables and meat. (Really, it was probably just a way for Italian mothers, like my own, to get their children to eat their vegetables.)

I'll admit that if I were making soup for my own personal benefit, I would probably just make something more simple and then just wait for my mom to deliver me some of her soup when she stops into town. But, the reason I am making Italian Wedding Soup today is because tomorrow, the law school is raising money and collecting food for the Harvest Hope Food Bank in Columbia, SC through a soup lunch. For, for some crazy reason, I volunteered to make, on behalf of my law journal, my mother's Italian Wedding Soup. Someone probably should have convinced me otherwise, because this soup has been keeping me busy for at least the last 12 hours with prep work, but I know that tomorrow it will be delicious and everyone at the law school will love it.

So, here goes, my zuppa del giorno (italian for "soup of the day"):

Italian Wedding Soup via my Italian mother:

Stock:

3.5 lbs chicken wings

10 cups water

4 carrots (peeled and halved crosswise, not longwise)

6 stalks celery and leaves

3-4 large yellow onions (outside layer removed and quartered)

2 cloves garlic peeled

10 whole black peppercorns (or black pepper to taste)

3 Tbsp. salt

2 Tbsp. dried parsley

3-4 dried bay leaves

2 Tbsp. basil

Meatballs:

1/2 lb. ground chuck

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs 

1 egg

Additions:

4 cups cooked rice

2 heads escarole or endive

Directions:

Cook the rice according to the directions on the package. I used 2 cups rice, 4 cups water, 1 tbsp. olive oil or vegetable oil (to keep rice from sticking). Simmer on low until all water is evaporated. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork. Allow steam to rise.

Wash and chop the escarole or endive, then boil in a small amount of water until tender. This will take approximately 5 minutes. (Don't worry if the leaves start to lose their beautiful green color. I think you can probably shock them in an ice bath after steaming but it really doesn't matter). Drain well.

Mix together the ground chuck, parmesan cheese, egg, and breadcrumbs in a bowl. Roll meat mixture into very tiny meatballs (about the size of a nickle). My mom says to microwave for 4 minutes and then drain, but I browned them in a large skillet (make sure when you push them around that they don't break up in your pot though).

Use a large pot (an extremely large one actually), I used what I thought was a big pot and realized that I had to make the soup twice because I couldn't fit everything in.

Wash wings under cold water. Add to pot the cleaned chicken wings, water, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic. (If 10 cups of water isn't enough to cover everything in the pot, add just about a cup more until covered. Don't fill the pot to the top though. Vegetables will eventually reduce, so you're probably fine.) Bring to a boil. Just as the water starts to boil, skim fat with large spoon. (For those of you who aren't sure what chicken fat looks like, it's kind of foamy.) After pot is boiling add peppercorns, parsley, bay leaves, basil, and salt. Cover, reduce to simmer, and simmer for 3-5 hours (the longer the better).

Drain entire pot through a fine screen / collander. Chop and add as desired from the stock any carrots and celery. Clean chicken and add to stock. Add escarole or endive, rice and meatballs.

Serve sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

ENJOY!

It really is Amazing what Soup can Do - Minestrone

You know how the Campbell's soup commercials always advertise: "It's amazing what soup can do." Well, I guess it's obvious that those commercials were always referring to the fact that soups can go "beyond the can," and I suppose they always try to prove this to you by showing you what a can of soup looks like if it's poured over rice, or eaten out of a coffee mug, or something silly like that. However, I never realized the import of those little words until today.

I guess by way of introduction, and some background, I am currently finishing my my last year of law school and my boyfriend is teaching English in Korea for a year (yes a year, and he only left a month ago... sigh). As part of my mission to do anything but sit and mope about, I've decided to create a food blog to show my delicious, and sometimes failed, attempts to make beautiful or heart-warming food to not only keep me busy, but also to let me relieve stress and learn some new skills.

As third year of law school seems to be showing me on a daily basis, stress comes and goes as it will, and there really isn't much I can do to predict when it will overwhelm me. That as it may be, I realized today that there is no ceiling on stress. In fact, just when you think you couldn't have more on your plate, burdens on your shoulders, things piling up, it hits you that... in fact, you can, and you will.

I happened to study this afternoon for a law school exam in one of the most boring and complicated subjects possible (Secured Transactions, yuck. What the heck is a secured transaction anyway?). It didn't necessarily help that I decided to study with one of the brightest students in my class (#2 in the class as a matter of fact). I suppose I always fancied myself to be somewhat of a competitor with this particular student; however, after only a few short hours with her, I realized that I am no where close to her level of intelligence. For so long I had tricked myself into somehow believing that the only thing separating the two of us was my inability to sit at a desk for as many hours on end as she did. BUT, I was wrong. In fact, she is tremendously brilliant and my inability to focus was not the issue.

I did make a single attempt to go back to studying after that challenging study session, but after about 45.2 seconds I realized that such an attempt was futile. Rather, I packed my bags and headed home. As I tried to convince myself not to cry on my way back to my apartment, I decided that food could calm me down. But not just any food, no, the only thing that would calm my nerves this particular afternoon was a hearty bowl of soup.

While I didn't put all the ingredients into the crockpot until about 4:00pm (meaning that I didn't get a taste of its deliciousness until about 10 minutes ago, at 1:30 am), the aroma throughout my apartment this evening was enough to calm my nerves, get me back on the right track, and refocus my brain into studying for finals again.

ENJOY! (And don't stress, as Scarlet O'Hara says: "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.")

Spicy Crock Pot Minestrone Soup:

1 (32 oz.) carton Swanson's chicken broth

1 (28 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes

1 (16 oz.) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 (15 oz.) can black beans

      [I'd like to point out here, that I never realized that different beans came in different sized cans... who knew?]

 5 small red-skinned potatoes, peeled and diced small

1/2 large yellow onion, diced

1 stalk celery (leaves and all) (make sure you clean it well, dirt loves nothing like the inside of a celery stalk)

3 medium-large carrots, peeled and chopped (quartered for the wider top half of the carrot)

1 tbsp. minced garlic (about 2-3 large cloves)

3 - 4 fresh basil leaves finely chopped

1/2 tbsp. dried minced onion

1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

1 tbsp. dried Italian seasoning

1 tsp. cracked black pepper

1 tsp. salt (that's all I'll admit to using because my mom is probably going to read this, but in reality put in a lot... like 1 tbsp. +)

2 tsp. dried oregano

[optional] 1 tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes (but don't add these in until about 4 hours into cook time)

      Of course, you can put more or less depending on your spiciness level.

[optional] 8oz. (1/2 box) dried mini shell pasta (truthfully, the soup already has potatoes, but I can't get enough of pasta)

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Cook the noodles according to the directions on the box (but for better taste cook in salted water). Add to soup when soup is finished cooking. The soup is especially delicious with additions at the end like freshly grated parmesan cheese or a piece of toasted garlic bread.