Awaiting the weekend

I came across a recipe for That's Amore Soup   {click link for recipe} yesterday, and on my way home from work I stopped to pick up some Italian sausage so that I could make it.  This soup is SO good!  Perfect for this way less-than-perfect weather.

Cold, cold, cold!  I feel lucky that we don't have the snow and ice everyone else across the country has...it's nice and sunny here.  That's the thing about winter...sunshine and clear skies makes for a cold morning...with wind-chills making it feel like way below zero.  It was a few degrees warmer this morning, and for that, I'm grateful!

I'm off this entire weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it.  Puttering around, a little painting, reading, cooking and baking. That should make for a relaxing weekend.  I'll need to come up with a new soup to make on Sunday...it's back to soup and bread-making for the coming week on Sunday mornings.  Winter settles into a nice little rhythm as we begin the countdown to Spring (70 days, if you're interested!!).

Weekend Plans...post number 555

It's going to be a typical weekend here along the river...puttering around the house {{trying to keep warm!!}}, reading, listening to music (and looking for my mis-placed iPod), movie watching, soup-making, and bread baking.  This weekend's reading list includes:

My other "read" is for book discussion...The Shoemaker's Wife.  The books are so very different it won't be too much of a stretch for my brain.  One is a want-to, the other a got-to.  Makes a difference!

As for movies...it's going to be a Joseph Gordon-Levitt film fest...Premium Rush and Loopers.

My soup for the weekend--Ina Garten's Italian Wedding Soup:

Italian Wedding Soup

For the meatballs:

3/4 pound ground chicken

1/2 pound chicken sausage, casings removed

2/3 cup fresh white bread crumbs

2 teaspoons minced garlic (2 cloves)

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

1/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving

3 tablespoons milk

1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the soup:

2 tablespoons good olive oil

1 cup minced yellow onion

1 cup diced carrots (3 carrots), cut into 1/4 inch pieces

3/4 cup diced celery (2 stalks), cut into 1/4 inch pieces

10 cups homemade chicken stock  (cheating...using prepared stock)

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 cup small pasta such as tubetini or stars

1/4 cup minced fresh dill

12 ounces baby spinach, washed and trimmed

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the meatballs, place the ground chicken, sausage, bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, Pecorino, Parmesan, milk, egg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a bowl and combine gently with a fork. With a teaspoon, drop 1 to 1 1/4-inch meatballs onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. (You should have about 40 meatballs. They don't have to be perfectly round.) Bake for 30 minutes, until cooked through and lightly browned. Set aside.

In the meantime, for the soup, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a large heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and saute until softened, 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken stock and wine and bring to a boil. Add the pasta to the simmering broth and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the pasta is tender. Add the fresh dill and then the meatballs to the soup and simmer for 1 minute. Taste for salt and pepper. Stir in the fresh spinach and cook for 1 minute, until the spinach is just wilted. Ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle each serving with extra grated Parmesan.



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