Cream of Mushroom Soup
I use Cream of Mushroom Soup for the base of many recipes. In the past, my early married life, I usually just opened a can of condensed soup. It was what I saw my mother do and I never dreamed about making it from scratch. If I only knew back then how easy it is to make this soup. In addition, the taste is far better than anything out of a can.
I use this soup not only as a base, but also as an appetizer or meal also. They key to this warm, comforting soup is fresh ingredients and love. The time is about 10 minutes more than opening a can; it is well worth the extra 10 minutes.
Cook Time
Ingredients for Cream of Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup sweet onion, diced
- 2 large portabello mushrooms, remove stem and chop to 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup skim milk
- 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme
- salt, to taste
- fresh ground pepper, to taste
- olive oil
- 1/4 cube butter
- 1/4 cup AP flour, substitute corn starch to make gluten free
- 3 bulbs roasted garlic, optional
How to Prepare
- In a large heavy bottom skillet, drizzle a small amount of olive oil and add butter. Turn stove on to medium low.
- Dice onions and add them to skillet. Stir occassionally until soft and translucent.
- Add salt,Pepper and Thyme.
- While onions are softening, clean, stem and dice mushrooms into 1/2 cubes. Add to skillet when finished.
- If needed, drizzle a little more olive oil over the top to make sure they will not dry out. Stir. Let simmer for five minutes.
- Stir again. Cook for another five minutes or until the mushrooms are soft.
- Add 2 tablespoons flour and about 1/4 cup of stock. Stir until it is all worked in.
- Add Cream. Stir continously and cook for five more minutes. If you are using this as a base recipe -- stop here. This works as the condensed soup base. If you want soup, continue on...
- If desired, add your roasted garlic chopped very fine into the pan at this time.
- Add milk and the rest of the stock.
- Enjoy!
Tips and Tricks: Stock
I make my own vegtable and chicken stock and freeze it to use later on in freezer zip bags. I usually freeze 2 cups in each bag and just pull it out when I am assembling my ingredients.
To thaw: either run the bag under warm water. You may also remove stock ice from bag and place in a glass bowl and microwave.
**Using a boxed stock is perfectly acceptable for this recipe also.
Tips and Tricks: Mushrooms
Preparing mushrooms is not hard. First, mushrooms should be cleaned -- but not washed. Water over the mushrooms will make them slimy.
To clean a mushroom, take a dry paper towel and rub them over the top.
The mushrooms stems are many times tough and woody in texture. The only time I use them in cooking is to make a stock or inside of a stuffing diced very small. Most of the time, I will take the stems and put them in a freezer zip bag, keep them in the freezer until it is time to make stock.
Mushrooms add a woodsy flavor to your food. They also add protein.
Enjoy some bread with your soup!
A good bowl of soup is best enjoyed with a hearty and crusty bread. A fellow Hubster friend of mine has a bread recipe that would be very good with this. Her bread is made with whey. What a unique concept... I always wondered what to do with that extra whey.
Serving idea
I would slice a couple of peices of the whey bread and toast it. What would even put the bread over the top is a little butter and roasted garlic. Yum!
In a few weeks, other bread recipes will be added also... so check back with this page.
Tips and Tricks: Roasting Garlic
Roasted Garlic is one of the most delicious and easy things to do in the kitchen. Take two full heads of garlic. Stick in an oven proof container with a lid. **Hint** if you don't have an small oven proof container, just use aluminum foil to wrap it.**
Bake in a covered oven proof dish for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.
Roasted galic is good to add to soups, use as a spread and make compound butter with. You can also add to other recipes. Heck, for the real garlic lover, you can just eat it from the bulb.
Keep refrigerated after roasting. Use within a week.
