Minnestrone with matzoh balls

For the balls:

Matzoh balls are a ratio, really:
1 egg to ¼ matzoh meal to 1 tsp to 1 TBLS fat (vegetable oil, butter, margarine, chicken fat), with up to ½ cup extra liquid - broth or seltzer water, usually

4 eggs
1 cup matzoh meal
4 TBLS melted butter or margarine
½ cup broth
salt & pepper

Separate the eggs, and whip the whites until they’re fluffy. Beat the yolks, add the butter & broth, mix well, and fold this mixture back into the whites. Sprinkle the matzoh meal in gradually, mixing well. Season with salt & pepper, cover, and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

Bring the broth (or water) to a boil in a large pot, and reduce to a simmer. Wet your hands, and shape the matzoh dough into ping-pong ball sized balls. Drop them into the simmering broth, and when they’re all in, partially cover, and cook for 20 minutes.

I do this shaping by scooping the ball-batter out with a 1 TBLS scoop, onto a sheet of wax paper or parchment, then giving them a quick roll with wet hands and dropping them into the broth.

For the soup, I used Joy of Cooking's Minnestrone recipe (I'm really starting to like my 2006, 75th anniversary ed., but no way I'm tossing my older one, which I think is from about 1978), which has a little bit of bacon, olive oil, and Parmesan rinds, and smells so Italian, and the total UN-kosher-ness of it all just makes the soup more yummy. I think the recipe says to use beef broth; I used vegetable broth. You can find many recipes for vegetable broth on the web; Google Mollie Katzen & Not Chicken Broth. I brown the vegetables in a little oil or butter before adding the water; a trick I learned from Deborah Madison.

Check out another vegetarian matzoh ball soup