Bag o' Spinach Soup w/ Turkey Meatballs (and other variations)

The Story: I am in grad school right now, and flat broke. Thus, I tend to cook things that are either a) cheap or b) composed of ingredients lingering in my kitchen somewhere, so I don't need to go buy anything. I always seem to have frozen chopped spinach and canned tomatoes around, and I saw some ground turkey hanging out in the fridge-- and I knew what I had to do. Make soup. Then I made more soup with more bags of spinach, and other cans and boxes of things. Now I am fairly convinced that a bag o' chopped spinach + basically anything makes one fine soup.

The Original Soup:

Ingredients:

Soup:

• Bag o' chopped frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
• Large can of peeled crushed tomatoes
• 2 cloves finely chopped or crushed garlic
• 1/2 a large yellow onion, diced
• bay leaves (2 or 3)
• olive oil (1/3 cup or so)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• red pepper flakes
  
• fresh or dried basil
  
• fresh or dried parsley
• parm (the fresher and tangier, the better)

The Turkey Meatballs

• ground turkey, 1 lb or so (I prefer the 93% lean, the 97% lean doesn't stick together too well)
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• fresh or dried parsley
• red pepper flakes
• olive oil and canola oil, for cooking
  

The Soup Recipe

Saute the onion, garlic and parsley and basil in olive oil until the onions are clear on medium heat. Add the tomatoes and the balsamic. Let simmer for 5 minutes on medium-low. Add the rest of the spices. Add the chicken broth, and then the spinach. Drizzle in some more olive oil for body. Salt and pepper to taste, and let simmer down a bit. In the meantime...

The Turkey Meatball recipe

Put the turkey meat in a large bowl. Put in 5 or so generous shakes of the spices, enough to coat the top of the mound of meat (less red pepper if you're less spice-inclined). Mush that around with your hands. Smell it. if you can smell the spices, you're good to go. if not, add more. really spiced meatballs are a nice foil to the soup. In a large, heavy-bottomed saute pan or skillet heat up some 1/2 olive oil, 1/2 canola oil mix on medium-high heat. Take small amounts of the turkey, shape into balls, and fry in the oil, turning often to prevent burning. Drain on a paper towel.

The Serving

Serve the soup with the turkey meatballs dotted around in it. The best is when you grate some really tangy fresh parm on top, but the green bottle will do too.