Tried a new recipe: Italian Wedding Soup

This is one of my favorite soups. I've been eyeing the recipe for awhile in Giada de Laurentiis's "Giada's Family Dinners" book, but I was waiting on fresh pork and fresh beef. (We just purchased 1/3 of a cow and 1/2 a hog).

Giada's Italian Wedding Soup Recipe:

Meatballs:
1 small onion minced
1/4 c chopped parsley
1 egg
4 garlic cloves minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 c parmesan cheese
1/4 c dried bread crumbs
8 oz ground beef
8 oz ground pork

Soup:
10 c chicken broth
1 lb escarole chopped
2 eggs
2/3 c parmesan cheese

To make the meatballs:
Mix together the onion, parsley, egg, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir in cheese and bread crumbs. Using your hands, mix in the ground meats. Shape into 1" meatballs and set aside. Depending on the size of meatballs you want, an ice cream scoop, or a cookie scoop are helpful.

To make the soup:
Bring the broth to a boil. Add the meatballs and escarole and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix together the 2 eggs and cheese and slowly add to the broth, stirring to make thin strands of egg. Cook for an additional minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

My changes:
1. Apparently Dillon's doesn't believe in escarole. So instead I used about 1 c fresh spinach chopped. A little different flavor, but still a green.
2. I didn't have 10 c of chicken broth on hand. I had 4 c of chicken broth, and 4 c of turkey broth (that I froze at Thanksgiving), and added 2 c of water. (Yes there are four different animals in this dish)
3. I used a pound each of pork and beef because that's the size of the meat packages from the butcher.
4. I added about 4 oz (dried) of Ditalini pasta- which is like 1/4" long pieces of penne, but smaller diameter. I put this in the same time as the meatballs and let them cook in the broth.
5. She's not joking about pouring in the cheese/egg mixture SLOWLY. If you pour too fast, you end up with parmesan-scrambled egg on top of your soup. Yes, speaking from experience. But yes, it still tastes fine.
6. Giada says it's 8 servings, but I like soup, so there's more like 6 servings. Delicious lunches and dinners for the next few days!

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