Italian Orzo Spinach Soup with Fire Roasted Tomatoes

This recipe had me at "fire roasted tomatoes."

I love using these tomatoes for the extra smokiness they add. I always splurge when buying these tomatoes, too, choosing only Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes. In my store the Muir Glen are almost double the price of the non-organic brands, but it is so worth it in my opinion. Plus it's not something I do that often, and when I think about the fact that this soup was my lunch for 4 days, the cost per lunch is lower than buying a sandwich.

My other favorite thing about this soup was the mixture of herbs, especially rosemary. My husband doesn't like rosemary so I never get to use it, but this soup was just for my lunches so rosemary it was.

The original recipe that I followed called for whole wheat orzo and while I looked in a few stores, I had no luck in finding it. I want to keep my eyes open though and hopefully use WW next time. I used less orzo than the original recipe called for so my soup wouldn't be too thick.

Italian Orzo Spinach Soup with Fire Roasted Tomatoes
Adapted from: Gimme Some Oven

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 sm white onion, diced
• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1 cup diced celery
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 14 oz can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
• 3/4 cups orzo 
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried rosemary
• 4 cups loosely-packed spinach
• Salt and black pepper

Directions

• Heat oil in a dutch oven or large stock pot over medium-high heat.
• Add onion and saute for 4 minutes, until soft
• Add carrots, celery and garlic and saute for an additional 3 minutes.
• Add stock, tomatoes, orzo, thyme, oregano, and rosemary; stir to combine.
• Bring soup to a simmer, and then reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through. 
• Stir in the spinach until just wilted. 
• Season with salt and pepper to taste. 

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