Jami's Cooking Tips, Soup Edition

You know that old saying "Too much of a good thing"? It's an old saying for a reason: it's true. I am making Italian Wedding Soup for dinner. We had a chicken the other night (yes, I bought more chicken, but the whole chickens were buy one, get one, AND on sale!!). I like to make stock from the carcass, because then I feel like I'm really getting my money's worth. This led to a big pot of chicken broth with no real plan. Sometimes I just ladle it into tupperwares and freeze it for when I need broth, but really, I wanted to do something with it. Hmm, we have spinach in the freezer, and those little mini meatballs Eddie likes. I figured I'd get some of those little pasta balls (acini di pepe) and make wedding soup. Today I got a box of the pasta at the store, put the pot of stock back on the stove, added the meatballs, some spinach and I look at the box of pasta. Hmmm, how much to put in? They're so little. Yes, I know they absorb liquid, but they are still pretty teeny, even all cooked, right? I put in half of the box. I stir. I wait awhile. I stir again. You can barely even see that there are noodles in there! Eddie looooves the pasta; the Husband and I might end up with bowls of broth. So I dump in the rest of the pasta and leave it to simmer. Half hour later, I come back in to stir and find . . . A bowl of very wet noodles with some spinach. They have taken over the entire pot. Yup. You couldn't even call it soup to be nice. It's pasta with some chicken flavor. Fear not, dear reader! I took myself off to the chest freezer and retrieved several of my previously stored tupperwares of broth. A few minutes in the microwave and viola! (I like to pronounce this "VEE-ohla") - I have somewhat wetter noodles. At least it's now at least close enough that one could call it soup, if one is feeling generous. So, what's for dinner? Noodles, spinach, meatballs, and a touch of broth.