Italian Meatball Soup, my version

Yesterday late afternoon I had a hankering for Italian meatball soup, or at least some sort of soup with meatballs in it. It helped that I knew I had storebought Italian meatballs in the freezer and a couple of cans of chicken stock in the pantry, and I'd seen a recipe for Italian Sausage and Pasta Soup on the Frozen-Assets email list recently.

By dinnertime we were sitting down to Italian meatball soup. How did I do it? I substituted a bunch of Italian meatballs for bulk Italian sausage, skipped the canned diced tomatoes and white beans, substituted egg noodles for the shell-shaped pasta, skipped the fresh spinach leaves, added frozen green beans, and eyeballed the amounts of everything according to how much chicken broth I had -- the recipe included three quarts of broth! Dear husband and wonderful boys loved it, or at least (Son2) ate the meatballs, a green bean, and some broth.

My Quick Italian Meatball Soup

12 or so frozen Italian-style meatballs
1 tsp olive oil
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1/4 onion, minced (could be chopped; it's a texture thing for some in the family)
1 clove garlic, minced (I buy minced garlic in a jar)

Cook in a 2-quart saucepan until the onion is translucent.

Add:
2 cans or 4 cups chicken broth
1/2 can or 1 cup of water
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

Bring to a boil.

Add:
1 cup or so of frozen green beans
2 cups dried egg noodles

Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are tender. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Nearly everyone gobbled it up, and this is a very big deal as I have in the past been very frustrated with trying to make a good soup. Hurrah! Dear husband suggested adding mushrooms at the saute stage, and definitely a crusty bread would be great. I was working with what we had on hand, so I served whole-wheat sandwich bread with butter, LOL!