Day 40: Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup

So, our camera's casing somehow got cracked, meaning Best Buy has our camera for about 2 weeks. (Technically, they sent it to Nikon to be repaired, but still, no camera for 2 weeks.) Blah! So, the pics are gonna have to go back to our point-and-shoot and/or our phones. This picture happens to be taken on the new iPad 3! (Apparently, the iPad 2 has a mic problem, so mine got replaced! Woot for new toys!)

My family has been fighting sickness lately, so I've been trying to make soups. Given my decision to not buy canned/jarred items, I had to go looking for really good recipes for homemade. Less sodium, healthier ingredients, better tasting!

Plus, the rest of this soup was used for an awesome chicken recipe that I'll be posting soon!

This was basically a simple soup base of butter, onion, garlic, and flour mixed with heavy cream and chicken stock. I probably should have used vegetable stock, but this is what I had on hand, so I used it. As the title of this post suggests, I put mushrooms in there. They're not mandatory and if you leave them out, this makes a very nice cream of (whatever you wish) soup! Cream of chicken would work really well! Just replace mushrooms for the appropriate amount (I'm thinking roughly 2 cups) of chicken, or cauliflower, or potatoes, or celery. You get the picture.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp butter
6 oz sliced Portabella mushrooms, chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 oz sliced button mushrooms
1/2 cup diced onion
2 cups half-n-half
2 Tbsp dry sherry (optional, I didn't use it)
14 3/4 oz (a little less than 2 cups) chicken broth
3 Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp water
Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste (I didn't use the Tabasco)

Directions:

1. In a 4 1/2 quart stock pot, melt butter over medium-low heat. Add the Portabella pieces with the button mushroom slices. Cook about 4 minutes. Add the onions (and the sherry if using) and cook for another minute to soften the onions (and evaporate the alcohol, if using the sherry).

2. Add chicken broth, cover, and raise the heat to high. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat back to low and simmer for 3 minutes.

3. Combine the flour and water in a small bowl and whisk it with a fork until all the lumps disappear.

4. Raise the heat on the soup to medium and stir in the half-n-half. Give the cornstarch another whisk with the fork and add that to the pot as well, stirring constantly. Cook until thick.

5 Season with Tabasco (if using) salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.