Johnsonville Italian Wedding Soup

Soup is a staple in our house, we could eat it all the time, as long as it's not from a can.  It's a great way to use leftovers (like the last little bit of various frozen veggies you may have in the freezer - that's our house), and it's pretty hard to screw up.

Italian Wedding Soup is one soup that I've never made before so I was excited to see a recipe for it from Johnsonville on AllRecipes.   I followed the recipe as directed, my only change was that I used ditalini instead of orzo since that was the only small pasta I had on hand.  I used Johnsonville's Pork and Chicken Mild Italian Sausage, which contains 50% less fat and just removed the casing to make the mini meatballs.  The meatballs turned out great, they were flavorful and held together really well in the soup.

The soup didn't call for any salt, but I felt like it really needed a little.  I'm guessing that because I used the Johnsonville 50% less fat sausage that the broth didn't turn out quite as seasoned as I would have liked.  And because I like lemon in pretty much everything, I added just a touch of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a little shredded parmesan which pushed this soup right over the top for me.  

It's been raining here in western Maryland for 6 days now.  It's grey and drizzling today (again), and its damp.  The perfect day for a warm bowl of Johnsonville's Italian Wedding Soup and a few slices of some warm buttered bread.  Hopefully, when I get home today there's a little soup left for me!