Italian Wedding Soup

This soup is simple and tastes great.  Over the years, the meatballs that we put in the soup have changed from just simple small balls of ground beef to Grammie's much better variety (see earlier post)...Either way, the soup is great, depending on how much time you have to spend making it.  The base of the soup is just chicken broth - either from the can, boullion cubes, or from some broth that you've saved - we've found that adding extra water to the broth extends the soup without changing the flavor too much.  We make about 2 cups of broth per person.

Bring the broth to a boil  and either add in precooked meatballs or cook them directly in the boiling broth.  If you cook them in the broth, you may have to skim off the fat later.  Once the meatballs are cooked, bring to a boil and add in about 1/3 cup of rice and 2/3 cup of water per person.  Keep the heat on and the rice will take about 15 minutes.  Once the rice is done, turn off the heat and add in a handful of fresh baby spinach for each person.  It is ready to serve in about 2 minutes.  This is soup can be as large or as small as you want.  Finally, add some Parmesan cheese and fresh pepper to each bowl ... enjoy!