Homemade Broth & Italian Wedding Soup

The best part about this soup is the broth. Sure you can buy a quart of broth at the store, OR you can save all your veg scraps in a container in the fridge and once it's full, boil that sucker down until you have amazing and FREE vegetable broth. This was by far one of the best things I started doing. Once I noticed how much I was buying broth and how much I was throwing away vegetable scraps I got wise to my wastefulness and bought some containers. Since then I haven't needed to buy any broth and I notice that the things I put the homemade broth is taste significantly better.

Vegetable broth
a whole mess of vegetable scraps
enough water to cover
a bundle of fresh herbs (thyme and rosemary work great)
sea salt

Add the vegetable scraps and some salt in a large pot and add enough water just to cover. Simmer for 90 minutes then drain and enjoy!

Italian Wedding Soup
1 tbl extra virgin olive oil
1 carrot, small dice
8oz Nate's Vegan mushroom meatballs, semi- thawed
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
6 cups vegetable broth
1 head spinach, roughly chopped
1 cup fuscilli pasta
2 tbl chopped fresh parsley

In a large pot, heat the oil and saute the carrots for 3-4 minutes. Add the meatballs, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Saute for 3-4 more minutes until the meatballs get a crust on the outside. Add the vegetable broth and bring to a simmer. Add the spinach and pasta and cook for 8-10 minutes until the pasta is cooked through. Garnish with parsley and more salt and pepper to taste.