Mushrooms anyone? If you’re a mushroom fan, you’ll love this soup. It’s a hearty mushroom soup with a touch of cream. Perfect for this cold snap we’re having in the DC area.

Even better on the second day. Andy’s dad and brother want to open a restaurant. A restaurant serving second-day soup. Has a nice ring to it, right? While it may not be the best way to entice patrons, they’re so right. Think about it – how much better does soup taste next day?

Same goes for today’s Wild Mushrooms Soup post. It was good the first day, but by the second day, oh my!

Since it’s my week to host Project Pastry Queen, I want the recipe to be the same as the cookbook, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t tweak it a bit.

• First, lesson learned (again) – read the entire recipe before beginning. If I had read through the entire recipe, I would have realized we weren’t going to blend the soup and would have cut the mushrooms into much smaller, bite-sized pieces.
• Second, even if I had cut the mushrooms smaller, I would still like to blend some of the soup. I put half of the soup into another pot and used my emersion blender to make a very thick broth to add back to the yummy chunks of mushrooms.
• Finally, next time I may add garlic along with the onions. Garlic never hurts anything.

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in large sauté pan. Add the onion and cook until medium soft and transparent.
2. Add all the mushrooms and cook on medium heat about 10 minutes, until they give up their liquid and the absorb it.
3. Remove the sauté pan from the heat and stir in the flour, 1 Tbls at a time.
4. Return the pan to low heat and gradually pour in the broth, stirring constantly.
5. Add the white pepper, nutmeg, lemon juice, and sherry. Simmer the soup over medium-low heat for 10 minutes.
6. Add the cream and stir until the soup is hot.
7. Add the cayenne and season with salt, if needed.
8. Transfer to serving bowls and garnish with chives.

NOTES

4 servings.

Recipe from Rebecca Rather’s The Pastry Queen.