Really good soup that feeds a crowd.

On Thursday night I was in charge of feeding about 60 people at a Relief Society Party.  I woke up Friday morning and knew I had my brother Bart and his wife and baby and my Dad and Gigi coming to dinner that night.  I wanted to make something really good and not way hard and I didn't want to go to the store.  I also wanted to be able to do most of the work in the morning, so I could straighten up the house in the afternoon.  I turned to King Arthur Flour because if I was going to try something new on all of those people I needed a reliable recipe source.  

I decided on this recipe for Italian wedding soup.  It was a big hit.  And it makes a ton.  

Notes:

I had to move it from my six quart to my eight quart pot.  For the meatballs I mixed half pork and half ground beef.  I patted the meatball mixture out in a jelly roll pan with my hands and baked it all in one piece.  After it was cool I used a pizza cutter and cut the meat into small squares.  Way easier than making dozens of tiny meatballs.  

I completed through step 4 in the recipe and then put everything in the fridge to be completed later.  I also added a chopped up fennel bulb that I needed to use up to the vegetable mixture.   I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. 


I served the soup with these breadsticks.  They are chewy and a bit like bagels because you boil them before you bake them.  Don't make them longer than about 6 inches.  I didn't have diastatic malt powder, so I used malted milk powder in the dough and left it out of the boiling water.