Magical Turkey Meatball Soup

It's one of those days where the stress of the week has slowly crept up on me.  Work has been much busier (New Year's Resolutions), my house is a mess, I'm in dire need of groceries, and today around 3PM we realized that our sewer is backed up and flooded the bathroom basement and leaked onto the carpet.  Did I mention my in-laws are coming Thursday night for the holiday weekend...and staying in the basement??? 

Deep breath.  I knew I needed to calm down and make a plan, but I also like to dwell on everything that is going wrong (no one said I take the healthy approach).  So, I decided to ruminate over a bowl of the soup I made for last night's dinner.  It may have just been that my blood sugar was low, but all I know is that by the end of my bowl, things were looking brighter.  I now know I will get my act together, Roto-rooter will come to fix the problem (hopefully tomorrow??), and I will be all set by the time our family gets here.  Plus, Henry loved the soup and ate two turkey meatballs with a bit of soup last night and today!  I think that proves it's magical!

The soup was based on a Moroccan Chickpea Soup recipe I found by Dave Lieberman on the Food Network website.  I know it had protein from the chickpeas, but I wanted to add turkey meatballs because I knew Henry and my husband would like them.  Only problem was I had a pound of ground turkey in my freezer that I had to use, so I probably had too many meatballs for the soup.  Also, because I don't actually eat meat, I made the turkey meatballs quite large so I could easily pick them out - I'd probably recommend making them smaller for a prettier presentation.  I also added pastina to make it more hearty.  I like to think that Henry likes the pastina because they are cute little star-shaped pasta, but it's probably more for me...

Moroccan Turkey Meatball & Chickpea Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin

dash cayenne pepper

1 tsp paprika

1 (15 ounce) canned diced tomatoes

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

8 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 tsp sugar

salt & pepper to taste

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 egg

1 Tbsp Pereg Meatball Seasoning (cumin, allspice, cinnamon, etc.)

1/4 cup pastina

1/2 cup frozen spinach

1.  Saute onion and garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes.  Add cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika. Then add diced tomatoes and chickpeas.  Use a potato masher to mash up some of the chickpeas.  Then add the stock, sugar, and salt & pepper.  Bring to a boil.

2.  While the soup is getting to a boil, make the meatballs by combining ground turkey, breadcrumbs, egg, and Meatball Seasoning.  Form small meatballs and drop into the boiling soup.  Then bring soup down to a simmer, and let simmer for about 45 minutes.

3.  After 45 minutes, add pastina and spinach, and let cook for another 10 minutes. 

Happy and (mostly) healthy eating!