Italian wedding soup is one of my favorites, and I would love a veg-friendly recipe. What did you do? Did you use tiny veggie meatballs, or big ones?

It's actually kind of a mix between minestrone and wedding soup.

I don't really love minestrone but I had the beans and noodles and went from there and it turned out well.

I used the little frozen veggie meatballs from Trader Joe's. Just added them at the end.

Here's the recipe as I made it.

In a medium soup pot, sautee onion (quarter yellow onion, I'd guess) and minced garlic (fair amount, about four cloves) in olive oil and butter. Should be almost enough olive oil to cover the bottom by itself and a generous dollop of butter.

I find with the vegetarian soups and chili that it's beneficial to add some delicious making fat unless I'm going for a very bright, vegetable flavor. Just trying to make it richer.

Once the sauteed onion and garlic was releasing a good scent I added two cans of black beans. Then I added another can of water.

Then I cheated and added some of the Pacific Natural Foods organic French Onion soup. About half a cup. It's a vegetarian stock but it's really rich and dark. This has been a real find for me when I've needed a good veggie substitute for beef stock.

If you can't find an equivalent I think you'd need to roast onions until they were dark and a bit carmelized then blenderize them with some liquid to get this effect.

I seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne and cumin (because of the beans, not so necessary in a true Italian Wedding soup).

Did my second cheat and added about half a small tub of fresh salsa. This isn't the jarred stuff but the fresh stuff they keep in the cold section out here. Not sure if the rest of the country can get things like Casa Sanchez yet. But I use it for a fresh, tomatoey jolt to the soup. It's got the acid but also some other flavor to add to it.

Then I cut up a medium tomato, diced it, sprinkled with salt and dried Italian herbs (marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme).

Threw that into the pot.

Then I skimmed a lot.

Then I added a fair amount of pasta (third of a bag?): rigatoni.

I think in a real Italian wedding soup you'd use something tiny like orzo. Maybe elbo mac.

Cooked until the pasta was about done. Skimmed a lot again.

Added the meatballs at the end and it only took them a couple minutes to cook. I could've also added in some fresh baby spinach at the end for the true Italian wedding soup vibe.

Topped it with a bit of greek yogurt which JZ likes in lieu of sour cream.

I think the key is finding that good vegetarian substitution for beef stock, and I recommend finding a really rich dark, onion stock. Not a generic veggie stock. Also, you want something like this to be a bit rich so don't stint on the olive oil and butter when you're sauteeing. You could probably tart it up with a little white wine or sherry too.

In a true Italian Wedding soup you'd skip the beans and tomatoes. (and obviously the salsa). You'd want a more clear stock, and you'd stir in the greens at the end.

You could probably make a good veggie meatball from scratch using something like Yves meatless ground, egg, seasoning and something yum like parmesan.

Anyway, as I said, the key is making the stock as rich and flavorful as you can.

Trader Joe's has tiny veggie meatballs? Maybe we don't have them here. (They do have normal-sized veggie meatballs.)

In a true Italian Wedding soup you'd skip the beans and tomatoes. (and obviously the salsa). You'd want a more clear stock, and you'd stir in the greens at the end.

I think if I were making yours, I'd do everything you did AND then add the greens at the end. Yum.

You could probably make a good veggie meatball from scratch using something like Yves meatless ground, egg, seasoning and something yum like parmesan.

There's a great veggie meatball recipe in Veganomicon using mashed beans and wheat gluten, plus some bread crumbs and seasonings.

Trader Joe's has tiny veggie meatballs? Maybe we don't have them here. (They do have normal-sized veggie meatballs.)

I don't like them very much. They taste like...carrotburger or something. Not the right flavor. I like the turkey meatballs.

Good tip on the stock, David. Is that from TJ's?

Totally random question, prompted by a conversation with a friend -- is there a white TV show family with several kids, all of whom have dark hair? Every white TV show family we could think of were either all blond kids (even if the parents both had dark hair) or some blond and some brown-haired kids, but we couldn't think of any TV family with several dark-haired kids and no blond ones.

On Dexter, Cody and Astor are both dark-haired. Harrison could be blond, but he's a baby so it's hard to tell.

hides in a corner, hyperventilates a tiny bit

I'm polishing up the proposal for the second GCS book. My agent said I should include site stats and talk about what I've been doing since the first book came out, because the more ammo my editor has to take to the publishing board, the better. So Pete and I sat down, looked at my site stats, and did some math.

My average hits per month are 1,333,32. That's ... a lot of people. Ima gonna have a tiny freak-out now, don't mind me.

Wow! Nice!

Then I cheated and added some of the Pacific Natural Foods organic French Onion soup. About half a cup. It's a vegetarian stock but it's really rich and dark. This has been a real find for me when I've needed a good veggie substitute for beef stock.

Great tip. I will have to add that to my pantry.