Luisa's Winter Soup

This weekend when I went grocery shopping I bought a 6lb package of beef. Now that's way too much meat even for a family of 7. So what to do? I took a friend's advice and followed what she does cook it all and freeze for later meals. So I rolled 3 trays of mini meatballs and cooked them in the oven. One tray was for Tuesday night's dinner. I served the meatballs with white rice and made tomato sauce on the side for dipping. Some had the meatballs in a sub roll drizzled with tomato sauce.

Now even though I used only 1 tray we still had leftovers for the Wednesday night. Since there has been some coughing around here and there has been word of soar throats I thought soup is needed. I took all the leftovers and a couple of vegetables and came up with this:

Luisa's Winter Soup
2 - 32 oz boxes of Swanson no msg chicken broth
4 cups water
cooked white rice
handful of chopped baby spinach
1/4 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup tomato sauce
precooked mini meatballs
taco flavored shredded chedder cheese for topping
In a pot add broth, water, chopped carrots, chopped spinach and sauce. Bring to a boil and cook until carrots soften and spinach wilts about 5-8 minutes. Once vegetables are cooked add meatballs and rice and cook for a few minutes to warm up. Serve hot and sprinkle with cheese.

Luisa's Winter Soup Tips: Most of these ingredients are pre-made because they are leftovers. It's hearty and warm and good for colds. For my vegetarian friends skip the meatballs and use vegetable broth. I don't make a very good homeade chicken broth that's why I use the store bought. To make it allergy friendly use your favorite meatball recipe and omit the cheese for topping it's still tasty. Feel to use this recipe in your kitchen and make the necessary variations adding or taking what you like to bring a little bowl of warm soup to your table.