Italian Wedding Soup-updated!

We love this soup...but I've never made it from scratch before. While I was reading my daily addiction of blogs, I found a recipe for one. This is what we are having for dinner tonight, hopefully its good because I will also be feeding my in laws with it. It will be served with homemade breadsticks! YUM!  This is linked over at my friend Amy's blog Home Cookin' Healtified where it is Slow Cooker Sunday!

Italian Wedding Soup- adapted from Finding Joy in My Kitchen

Meatballs:
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese,grated
palmful of italian seasoning and garlic powder
1 tsp parsley
pepper to taste

Combine ingredients and shape into small balls. Cook in pan until browned.

Soup:
4 cups of chicken broth
baby carrots, chopped to equal 1-2 cups
3 celery stalks, sliced
1 onion, diced
4 cups of water
2 bouillon cubes
9-10 oz box of frozen spinach, thawed, strained
1/4 cup small pasta(ill be using alphabet noodles)
1 egg(optional)
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese(optional)

Place broth, water, bouillon, and veggies in 5.5 quart slower cooker. Cook on low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs or until veggies are tender. 30 mins before serving add in pasta, spinach, and meatballs. Stir. Dish into bowls and serve with Garlic breadsticks.

**This was a delicious and easy soup...ok so the meatballs to me were a bit labor intensive, but sometimes I just do not have the patience for meatballs, but it was so worth it in the end. Next time I'll pop them in the oven to cook vs. cooking them on the stove top. Just takes less effort...
The pasta did take longer than 30 mins to cook, so depending on what kind of pasta you use, I'd drop it in an hour before, if possible. You could also cook it on the stove top and then add it in. I also ended up using 2/3 of of the pasta and could probably really use more!

Kid Help: Measure/stir/pour, and if you are lucky they might like to roll the meatballs. A made a heartshaped one!

Enjoy!

also linked to What's in your crockpot?