Turkey Meatball Soup with Barley and Kale

 

One week I was not feeling so well and I was lucky enough to have this recipe on hand. Courtesy of my co-teacher. This soup was so filling and delicious and definitely made me feel much better. This soup lasted my husband and I a good three days. Of course by the end of it, we were tired of it.

Luckily my co-teacher was the guinea pig and made it the day before and was telling me that the barley made the soup really thick. I really don't like this type of soup to be too thick so it was a nice warning for me to change it up.

As you can see from the picture of the recipe, my co-teacher found it from a magazine.

  

I, of course, did not follow the exact ingredients, so here is my revised version. 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

2 medium carrots, peels and diced

2 ribs of celery, diced (I try to get the inner most ones with the leaves. I think the leaves have so much flavor! =o)

1 cup diced onions

3-4 cloves of garlic, finely diced

6 cups of chicken broth (I used Rachel Ray's low sodium chicken stock)

3/4 cup of barley (I used a quick cooking version. I think this would be good with pearled barley as well. I just didn't  have the time to wait for it to cook.)

1 lb of ground turkey (I like Perdue)

3/4 (or more) cup shredded Parmesan Cheese, plus more to garnish

2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

1 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

1/2 tsp pepper (to taste)

1 can (15.5 oz) small white beans. (These are a little smaller than cannellini beans which I like better in this soup)

8 cups roughly chopped kale. (I couldn't find escarole the first time I made this, but when I made this soup for the second time, I decided that I liked the kale better.)

As for the directions, I pretty much followed the directions on the original recipe. 

 

ENJOY!!!