Food Friday - Italian Wedding Soup

Italian Wedding Soup
adapted from Skinny Taste

I made this soup yesterday and it is so wonderful!!  We love meatballs and orzo is so easy to work with that it makes this soup a quick fix for dinner or even for lunch.  A couple of things I did differently than the recipe below.  One, I could not find escarole in my grocery store so I picked up spinach instead and it worked wonderfully well in the soup.  I read the comments on the blog post and a lot of people used Kale - I'm not a fan of Kale at all but if you like it, it would go well in this soup also.  The other thing - do you see any orzo in that bowl of soup?  Me neither and I even know it is in there HA!  Once we were done eating, I went to put the left overs in the fridge and guess what?  The orzo was all floating on the top - I guess I should have cooked it a little longer so the orzo would have been completely done :-)  

For the Meatballs:
1.3 pounds of ground turkey breast
1/4 cup seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1 large egg
1/4 cup onoin, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Soup:
8 cups fat-free low sodium chicken broth
1 (16-oz) head escarole, chopped
fresh cracked pepper to taste
3 oz (1/2 cup uncooked orzo

Directions:
IN a large pot, heat the chicken broth over medium heat, covered. 

While the broth is heating up, in a large bowl, combine ground turkey, breadcrumbs, egg, parsley, onion, garlic, salt and cheese.  Using your hands, gently mix all the ingredients well until everyething is combined.  Form small meatballs, about 1 tablespoon each, you'll get about 40.

When the broth comes to a boil, drop the meatballs in, add the orzo and chopped escarole. Add fresh pepper, adjust salt as needed and cook about 10 minutes or until orzo is done.

Makes 12 cups