Meatball and Veggie Soup

I'm back in the saddle again! After days of nixing cooking in favor of frozen food and eating out, we're back to firing up the old stovetop. Since we've had a bit of a chilly spell in Hampton Roads, I thought it may be a good opportunity to try my hand at soup. 

Soup has always struck me as something hard to make at home. I can't remember a single instance when someone in my family made homemade soup. Not one. And honestly, I don't think this recipe for meatball and veggie soup (from "Anyone Can Cook," as always) should count as cooking. 

It had one step. One! It was:

• Pour 3 cans of beef broth, 1 can of diced tomatoes with spices, frozen meatballs and a bag of mixed vegetables into a stock pot or dutch oven. Bring to boil. Add miniature pasta. Simmer for 10 minutes. Done. 

Too easy.

This is a great recipe for cleaning out the freezer, feeding an army or having leftovers for days. It's hearty. Maybe a little too hearty for my taste. I was always that kid that you have to trick into eating her vegetables, so I probably would have used a little less than a full bag. I like my soup more....brothy.

But it sure does look inviting, doesn't it? I had two ciabatta rolls left over from a week ago and I figured I'd serve those with the soup.

LESSON: Ciabatta rolls turn insanely, ridiculously hard when ignored for a week. Like, play-baseball-with-them hard. Break-the-serrated-knife hard! So that plan didn't work out. And for once, I improvised! I grabbed some sandwich rolls we just bought, split them in two, broke out the margarine, the garlic, the rosemary, and the parmesan cheese and made my very first garlic bread. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

We still have a TON of soup left over because one bowl of this is enough. I sent Sean off to work with a tupperware container of soup, but we still have another container full! 

EDIT: My mother claims she used to make homemade chicken soup. I don't remember this ever happening, but to humor her, I will apologize for my allegations.