Sustainable Saturday- Marrying Soup

My mother in law, recovering last week from surgery, wanted comfort food - a couple of her favorite soups.  She is of Italian heritage, and so my spouse decided to make a soup that was fed to him when he was sleep.

Many Americans know a version of this soup as "Italian Wedding Soup".  (The "wedding", incidentally, refers to the marriage of the ingredients, not marriages of people.)  However, in my spouse's childhood, they knew this soup as Escarole Soup.

This is how my spouse and I made Escarole/Italian Wedding soup last week.

First, earlier in the day, spouse had roasted a turkey breast.  Now, he took the carcass, and made bone broth.  But, because we didn't have loads of time, he "cheated". We added some commercial chicken broth to the bone broth. (Whose broth? My mother in law's local store had Rachel Ray's broth in retorts but spouse has started to use organic free range broth in retorts sold at our local Aldi.)

Spouse strained out the bones and fat. He set aside the remaining turkey meat set aside for the other soup we were making.

Next, it was time for the meatballs.   First, spouse prepared a ground meat mixture.

Spouse made these from part organic ground turkey and part ground beef.  As my mother in law had some Italian seasoned bread crumbs, we added that, too. The meatballs will cook right in the soup.

Next came kale, one of the most nutritious greens there is.

Next, escarole.

Finally, sliced organic baby carrots (non-organic are just fine) went into the soup.  My mother in law had some spinach that was a tiny bit out of date but still good for cooking, and that went in, too.

Finally, pearl couscous. You can cook these right in the soup, too.
If you wanted, you could add some orzo (risoni)instead.  

Time to marry the flavors!

We cooked it until the greens were wilted and allowed some extra time for the flavors to blend. Then, it was eating time, with some Italian bread.


So easy, so nutritious. And, it tasted so good.  My mother in law is a good cook and she gave the soup a thumbs-up.

I hope it sped my mother in law's recovery.  Soup is the most sustaining food you can serve on a snowy winter day.

A snowy tree in my mother in law's yard

Next Saturday, I will blog about the other soup we made.

What is your "go to" food when someone is not feeling well?