meatball soup

meatball soup

I'm not one of those people who cooks the same recipe every time.  I prefer to tinker with my food.  Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not so great.  This delicious recipe came out of a combination of ingredients on hand in the fridge:  chicken soup made from the bones of the roasted chicken two days ago, the outer leaves set aside from making fermented cabbage, the tops of celery, an onion, and the leftover bits of sweet bell pepper.  Needing to come up with something for dinner I decided that soup was the order of the day and a meatball soup seemed like a perfect dinner recipe to me.   It was a hit and, at least for a while, this will be making a regular appearance at our table.

It came out well, very tasty, easy to make and certainly a great way to use up leftovers.  I often joke that instead of the kitchen shows where the chef-contestants have access to a kitchen with every ingredient imaginable, there needs to be a cooking show where you have a refrigerator full of leftovers and a traditionally stocked pantry.    I'm not sure what anyone else would have made with my ingredients on hand; this is what I came up with.

Meatball Soup


1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup of celery (mostly greens), diced
8 large cabbage leaves, shredded
1/2 sweet bell pepper, diced
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
meatballs (see recipe below)
1 cup cooked rice
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot
Saute onion until just starting to wilt
Add garlic and saute one more minute
Add celery and cabbage greens and saute two minutes
Add bell pepper and saute one minute
Add broth and water
Bring to just under boiling then reduce to a simmer
Gently spoon meatballs into soup
Cook 20 minutes or until meatballs are done
Add rice, salt and pepper and serve

Meatballs


These are my basic meatballs.  I use this recipe for all of my meatball dishes, Swedish, Hawaiian, crockpot, spaghetti, grinders, this is my go to recipe.  There are no breadcrumbs in this recipe and we really don't miss them.  The mixture comes out a little gloppy at first but the meatballs are tender and juicy which is just the way we like them.

1 pound organic ground meat
1 egg
1 tablespoon dried onion
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients together and form into meatballs
Bake in 350F oven for 20 minutes or until cooked through