Italian Wedding Soup with Homemade Meatballs (recipe)

Today a friend gave us a ton of greens from a weekly produce basket. I decided to try and use them by making homemade Italian Wedding Soup, with fresh greens, Israeli couscous, and homemade meatballs. I have never made meatballs before, and even though I was winging it, I was really happy with how they turned out. The quality of meat makes such a huge difference. We have been getting our meat from the UC Davis Meat Sale. Every couple of weeks UC Davis offers meat from their animal sciences program for sale. It is extremely fresh (slaughtered and butchered on site), and raised naturally- free of unneccessary antibiotics. The animals are raised in small numbers and recieve vetrinary care from UCD. The meat is SO delicious, and ground beef goes for about $2/pound. I just made up the recipe as I went along, and added what I happened to have, so I thought I'd share the basics here:

Ingredients for Meatballs:

fresh ground beef (2.5 lbs)
1 sweet yellow onion, finely diced
2 fresh eggs
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons garlic pepper
2 teaspoons dried basil, crushed
freshly ground salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, using hands. When evenly mixed, use hands to shape into small meatballs. Each one should be about 2 tablespoons worth of meat mixture. This recipe should make enough to completely fill 2 cookie sheets. Bake until cooked through (~8-12 minutes).



Ingredients for Soup:

free range chicken broth
Vegetable bouillon cubes
1 pound organic Crimini mushrooms, diced
several large bunches freshly picked seasonal greens (you could use any- I used chard, kohlrabi, mustard greens, arugula, spinach, bay leaf, and a few varieties of lettuce)
Israeli couscous (I used around 2 cups, dry, for a huge stockpot of soup)


For soup:

Put a stockpot on the stove, and fill with 50% free range chicken broth, 50% water. Bring to a boil. Add vegetable bouillon cubes (Use the amount of water added to broth to determine number of cubes- ratio on package, usually 2 cups per cube).
Add diced Crimini mushrooms, simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add choped greens and bay leaves, cook for another 5 minutes. Add Isreali couscous, cook for a final 5 minutes.

Vegetarians can eat soup plain (if you are eating with people who don't like to use chicken broth, you can use veggie stock exclusively), meat eaters can add meatballs as desired. A bowl of soup with 4 meatballs is well balanced. Garnish bowls of soup with parmesan cheese, and serve with freshly baked rustic bread.