Tomato Rice Soup

Soup, there is a beauty about soup because it is easy and efficient and you can use almost anything that is leftover or just laying around. It does not have to be fancy it just has to taste good to your family.

When you make a soup, use the big pot (ours is 8 pints/4 litres) , that way you can save some in the freezer for quick lunches. We reuse the 750 ml yogurt containers for freezing soup, they are just big enough to get four small bowls, that with a sandwich or crackers makes a wholesome quick meal.
One of my favourites is tomato and rice with meatballs. For this you need:

-1cup of grated and or chopped vegetable,check the fridge for some vegetable scraps you may have saved like, zucchini, celery, the last two limp carrots, broccoli stems
-2 Tbl sp garlic mix
-1 finely chopped onion
-2 Tbl sp dried parsley
-3 Tbl sp cooking oil
-1/2 tsp salt or spike
- tsp yellow mustard seedlarge can or jar of tomato sauce
-small can of tomato paste
-2 cups rice

Ok, here we go,
first, put the pot on medium heat, add the oil then the onion, mustard seed, garlic mix, and the chopped grated vegetable fry/saute that in the pot for about 5-10 minutes stirring occasionaly.
then add the tomato sauce and the paste and 2 cups of water ( you can use the water to rince out the last of the tomato from the cans. Put on the lid and let it simmer while you make the meatballs.

-1lb ground beef
-1 egg
- 1/4 cup of bread crumbs
-1/2 tsp salt
-pinch of pepper

Mix the beef, egg, bread crumbs, salt and pepper in a bowl, then make the meatballs by rolling small amounts in the palm of your hand. Small spoon sized ones are the best, I make them the size of a large marble.
put them onto a cookie sheet and bake them for 15 minutes at 350°F.

Step three add the rice and the meatballs and the drippings to the simmerring soup and fill the pot 1inch below the rim with more water .
Let this simmer on low heat for about 1/2 an hour and it's done.

Enjoy and have a good day,
And...