In the Kitchen With Mattie

I think by now most people who know me also know I love home made soups. I make many kinds here at home but I also indulge in a few canned ones that I find good. One such soup was made by Progresso and back when we lived in NY I would always have a few cans on the shelf in the pantry.  It became one of the things I missed most when we moved south years ago. Whenever we have gone up to visit family back east I am always packing a case of it into the car for the house here along with anything else I can squeeze in that still allows us room to sit and drive. It’s funny how some things are just so close to your hearts and bring back memories. Hubby and the boys didn’t miss my favorite soup because they don’t like soup anyway, but for me it was a big thing.

Hubby worked all day today and late into the night so I was having dinner by myself and decided that with all the stock I had in the freezer and as I had everything else I needed to make the soup that is exactly what I did. I made myself a nice pot of soup!  Hubby got home a bit earlier than we expected and he smelled the soup and decided to have a bowl himself………he didn’t stop at one! So now all my great soup is gone and I’ll have to make more, well maybe later this week I will, but for tonight I will just remember how great it tasted for dinner.

Matties Chickarina Soup

8 cups of strong homemade chicken stock

4 stalks celery chopped

4 carrots, scraped and chopped

1 small onion, diced fine

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups of diced chicken

about 2 dozen tiny meatballs

3/4 cup dry tubbetini pasta (Ronzoni is a good one)

For this I used a digital pressure cooker. Into the pressure cooker put the chicken broth and all the vegetables. Close the cover and set the timer for 5 minutes. When the timer shuts off let the pressure drop by itself and then open the cooker and add the pasta (cooked separately in a small pot) and the diced chicken and meatballs, bring back up to a boil without the cover and simmer for 5 minutes to blend the flavors. I usually add about a cup of baby spinach at the end so it just wilts but I had none at home tonight and didn’t really feel like going to the market.

The chicken in this soup was already cooked, diced and frozen. The meatballs to were already cooked and frozen weeks ago. The meatballs are a plain one without heavy seasoning in them, I usually make about 200-300 and store them in a large freezer container until I need them for this soup or sometimes I put them into lasagna or I use them when I make some pasta for small children, they find them easy to eat.

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