Till Soup Do Us Part

Ideas for soups come from all places with the best coming during our Soup Club! This one came from Jeff and I discussing our Chicago ACA trip last Fall. We had a bunch of soup during this trip and I believe we were served a version of Italian Wedding soup. It was not good at all, one bite was enough for us to send it back. Discussing this gave me the idea to combine what I just saw on the Internet, Binging with Babish, where Italian meatballs were made at different price points. Once of these options was using lentils instead of meat to save money. So inspired by this, having vegetarian options requires more creativity, my soup was born.

Off to Meijer and Westborn on Sunday…with a guest appearance by my daughter Maya…

Now to make both kinds of balls…

2 ½ hours later, all the meat and meatless balls were done. Unfortunately this took my time away from gaming with my mother-in-law who was visiting.

After work on Monday it was time to make the soup base. With a decent amount of knife work, everything was in the pot cooking. I added the Zito and had the heat automatically turn off after 8 minutes. I had to go be a High School Robotics Coach for 2 ½ hours, came back and it tasted pretty good, removed the rinds and bay leaves, added water and put everything in the fridge downstairs so I can load it all in easily in the morning.

Tuesday morning I get a txt from Jeff that Robert Carradine passed away…we were just speaking about him last week as we are using AWS’s Lambda technology which always elicits Lamda, Lamda, Lamda from Revenge of the Nerds. RIP Robert.

Everything was prepped in our HQ’s kitchen, low heat on, and now it’s time to wait for Soup Club to start. I’m proud of the meatballs, they are some of the best food I have ever made, the meatless balls…are fine…just fine.

Go time, got everything set and helped everyone get their first bowl. Jeff got his first so it could cool down, has a future dentist visit planned to address, and the rest followed. I made sure to secure a bowl for Felton and delivered it with style.

Good comments all around while we ate. I tried the meatless balls again and…they were much better. Overall very proud of my soup, hit all the marks I wanted to hit.

Judging came in….

• Jeff gave it a 9.5, would have been higher with a different topper. I get it, parsley can only do so much, I was sticking to tradition.

• Adam…gave it a 10…wow, just wow. He is half Italian and said he was reminded of his Nana and poppa’s cooking…best compliment ever.

• Andy gave it a 8.9, so happy he liked it and the biggest way I know he did was he had a second bowl.

• Tam gave it a 9.5, very delicious, loved the meatballs.

• Conlan rounded us out with a 9.8…wow…new Soup Club record?

Average score of 9.54, I’m very thankful that the crew liked it. It was fun to make and I even had enough to take home a serving for my wife.

Only Felton of The Campbells Crew ™ had a bowl today and he gave it a 9, needed more spice. I’m ensure this mistake doesn’t happen again, ghost pepper to the rescue!

Skipping next week due to travel, Soup Club is back in two weeks with Conlan!