Italian Everyday Soup

Motivation
This is my spin on Italian Wedding Soup.  It's a quick weeknight soup that I make fairly often.  Basically I've extracted what I think are the crucial elements of the soup: broth, orzo, spinach, and parmigiana and reformulated it.  A few years ago I would have added meatballs to that list, but I have since become enlightened and realized that there is no reason to restrict oneself to meatballs.  Currently I favor shredded chicken (not only because it's good, but because I can buy a rotisserie chicken precooked on the way home).

I say it's a quick weeknight dish because you can stop on the way home and pick up all the ingredients at the grocery store and make it in less than half-an-hour.  If you happen to have some home made broth on hand, you know the good stuff, the kind that wobbles once its cooled - this dish becomes especially delightful.

Ingredients
~4 cups Chicken Broth (or stock if you have it)
~1 cup Orzo Pasta
1 bag Pre-washed Spinach
1 large Onion
1 Rotisserie Chicken
Shredded Parmigiana Cheese

Mise en Place
If you don't have a lot of broth you might want to make your orzo pasta first in a pot of water.  If you have a bit extra broth (or stock!) I am big proponent of cooking the orzo in the broth so it absorbs the flavor (plus there is one less pot to clean).

Dice the onion.

Pick the meat off of the rotisserie chicken and set aside.  I usually cut up anything that I don't happen to pull off in pieces down to bite size chunks.  This step can be done while the broth is heating and the pasta is cooking.

Method
Place a bit of olive oil in a small stock pot and heat on medium.  Soften onions.  Add broth and bring to a simmer.  Add orzo.  If orzo is already cooked move onto the next step.  If the orzo is cooking in the broth wait until it's almost done to continue.

Add chicken and any other seasoning you think the soup needs (black pepper, thyme, etc).

When the orzo is ready dump bag of spinach in the pot.  It will look like too much spinach, but it will quickly cook down to almost nothing.  I will occasionally push the spinach beneath the surface of the liquid to speed things along.

Once spinach is cooked down add shredded parmigiana cheese to the soup.  I keep sprinkling it in until it feels right.  Stir and give it a second to melt, then serve.