Home Efforts

So much of what I make seems to be using up ingredients that I already have at hand - purchased for some other meal or dish that never happened. We had several packages of mushrooms that needed some attention, in the last days before we left our holiday home. After some searching, I found a mushroom soup recipe that looked suitable - so we had one really nice meal, and froze the rest of the soup. Coming back, with friends, I thawed the soup, added some cream, and that rounded out our vegetarian meal: Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, burrata and a (new) balsamic glaze, roasted fennel and roasted beets with crumbled chevre, and some toasted whole wheat bread, that I had also made the same day as the mushroom soup and preserved in the freezer. A lovely dinner!

The bread is from the No Need to Knead cookbook - eventually I might make every recipe in it - they’ve all been so good.

Mushroom Soup

 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
2 cups finely chopped onions
6 ounces cremini mushrooms, chopped

6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps chopped

8 oz dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated with hot water
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
4-6 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
4 cups beef broth (homemade,) plus porcini liquid

Melt butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions; sauté until golden, about 5 minutes. Add all mushrooms and thyme; sauté until mushrooms begin to brown, about 8 minutes. Add brandy; stir 30 seconds, then mix in flour. Slowly stir in broth; bring soup to boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and a little bit of cayenne.  Puree some or all of soup – I used my immersion blender. May freeze.   Add a touch of cream or half-and-half after reheating.