Spring-ish Chicken Soup & Sr. Project

I helped more graduating seniors with their project this year, but instead of teaching them how to prepare a whole meal, like I did for Stuart last year, they wanted to learn how to do a cooking blog.

To help sweet Savanna and Rachel get the hang of what it takes to prepare a blog post, they came over for one of my cooking/photographing sessions and we made some Spring Chicken Soup. It's luscious and lemony and even though it's soup, it feels light enough for warmer months. (Believe it or not, it is 98 degrees here today.)

I had picked up some fresh in-shell peas from the farmer's market and the girls shelled those while I heated up the chicken broth that I made and froze a few weeks back and posted about it here. (Oh, and by the way, the Duchess of York stopped by to watch us work...ha! Actually, that's the Oprah Winfrey Show on the TV.)

I didn't have any diced chicken from my roasted chickens since I'd used that in a casserole, but I did have some frozen Lemon-Basil Chicken Meatballs in the freezer, so I added those to the soup. I cooked some tiny pastina pasta separately and added a scoop of the pasta to the bottom of each soup bowl before serving.

If you have some asparagus on hand, that is a delicious addition to the soup along with the peas or in their place.

Congratulations to Savanna and Rachel on a well-done senior project, high school graduation and upcoming lives as college students! Check out their new baking blog here.



Spring Chicken Soup with Lemon-Basil Chicken Meatballs

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground chicken
½ cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup prepared pesto sauce
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 egg
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, spray with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

Combine all meatball ingredients in a bowl, mixing until well combined. Form into small meatballs and place in the prepared baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes.

For the Soup:
1 quart homemade chicken stock or reduced-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup fresh or frozen shelled peas
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup pastina pasta, cooked according to package directions and drained
Freshly shredded Parmesan, optional, for serving

Heat the stock in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the peas, lemon zest and juice and the meatballs. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 4 minutes, until meatballs peas are tender and meatballs are heated through.

To serve, place a scoop of the cooked pastina in the bottom of each soup bowl and then ladle the soup around it. Sprinkle each serving with a little freshly shredded Parmesan, if desired.

Makes 4-6 servings.