Nonnie's Italian Wedding Soup

This soup reminds me of my childhood. My Nonnie used to make it in the pressure cooker, the whistling of which used to terrify me as a child. I also used to fight her over eating the kale and had a habit of eating everything but those leafy greens out of my soup bowl. My Nonnie passed away about ten years ago, but this soup lives on in both my mom's kitchen and now my own.  This soup lends itself very well to pressure cooking because the kale takes considerable time to cook. My pressure cooker is only 6 quarts so its not big enough so I just used a stock pot. If you're pressure cooking, just throw everything in together and cook for about 20-30 minutes, if you're sans-pressure cooker, this baby will take a few hours, but its worth it.

Start with the kale, remove the leafy greens from the rigid stalks and shred. I used 1 1/2 bunches because I now love dark leafy greens and tend to go heavy with the kale. (Kindly notice the shiny new granite counter tops in the background)

Get the kale cooking in a stock pot with 4 cups of stock, bring the stock and kale to a boil and cook for at least 30 minutes. This is not going to smell good, greens never smell good when they're cooking, but they taste much better than they smell.

Meanwhile, get your other veggies together. You'll need to mince 4 cloves of garlic, dice 2 medium white onions, chop 1 bunch of big or 1/2 bag of baby carrots, and chop 6 stalks of celery. Set these aside.

Next, make your meatballs. I used homemade pork sausage for mine, probably about 3/4 of a pound. Remove the sausage from its casing and add about 1/2 a cup breadcrumbs.

Mix these together with your hands and form into small balls.
Ignore adorable begging dog.
Sear the meatballs over medium heat. This helps them to stay together in the soup and cooks out a bit of the fat. Set these aside.
Check on you kale, it should be a little darker in color and flimsy.

Add the veggies, sausage balls and at least 4 to 6 more cups of stock. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer this for 45-60 minutes to be sure all the veggies and meatballs are cooked through.

Give the soup a taste to be sure the broth is yummy and everything is cooked, add any salt, pepper or other seasoning it may need. Lastly, add you pasta. I usually use orzo but didn't have any in my pantry, so I used 1/3 of a cup pastina. The pasta is going to absorb lots of stock, so be sure you have plenty to spare in your soup. Cook the pasta for about 5 minutes as you'll want it al dente. Don't be surprised if the pasta seems to disappear in the soup, its probably just hiding at the bottom of the pot.

I made 10 servings out of this recipe, so I hope you like it if you make it. Top with some Parmesan cheese and enjoy!
My good friend Liz enlightened me about this wonderful website www.sparkrecipes.com where you can input recipes and it will calculate nutritional information for you. For this recipe, per 1 and 1/2 cup serving, there are 150 calories and 6 grams of fat.