After trying this recipe, I’m embarrassed to have condensed cream of mushroom soup in my pantry. Although condensed soup is a great convenience, the flavor is nothing compared to making it fresh. I’ve always been a little intimidated by using a blender for soup-making. This changed my opinion - and I didn’t even have to work on perfecting it
I know this is starting to look like a broken (record) food blog. Bear with me - I hope I won’t have to live on soup forever. But it’s been my best friend these past 3 weeks - and I’ve learned a lot in the process.
I’ve been using a new blender so I can actually eat something (more than yogurt) - and it’s opened a big new world of things to try. If you love cream of mushroom soup from a can in your storage - this is much better, and almost as fast.
I wish I had had twice the amount of mushrooms - but my tiny 8-oz container really was enough to give it great flavor & texture. Next time I’m going to try doubling the mushrooms - just for fun.
The nice thing about this is that I KNEW what all those ingredients were. And I could control what additives (or lack thereof) there were. I could have used homemade chicken broth, but opted for powdered bouillon for convenience. I must admit, that it was a little salty - so you may want to use low-sodium broth if you’re not making your own.
I kept out a few of the whole mushrooms to add at the last minute to “pulse” so there would be a little texture. Even a slight pulse pulverized them - so take care in the last step - you can’t put them back together if you go too far.
This soup warms up beautifully, and it fills me on a cold day. Add a few croutons, or even a bit of grated or crumbled cheese just for fun.
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| (You're right... mushroom soup is not very photogenic, but the deep rich flavor gets me every time) |
For the full recipe with photos, go to:
I'm still playing catch-up from when my laptop temporarily "died", so I'm not sure why you're having to rely on soups. But I love when home-cooks convert from canned soups to making their own, ever since I figured out that most of my digestive problems were additive related.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you what hubby's fav foods were (other than soups) until his gums healed (flavor-fatigue made him grumpy, which he hardly ever is, so I tried even harder to find new flavors for him).
Bean dips: hummus, refried, white bean with rosemary and lemon, and I came up with my own flavor (don't remember seeing it online, and searched it at the time, so I guess it's original LOL): Montreal Balsamic Turtle bean dip
Cream cheese dips with Ritz crackers, I think it was about halfway through his gum-recovery that he found he could tolerate butter crackers if he let them sit in his mouth a bit so they'd soften.
His fav cream cheese dips (he preferred the cream cheese dips over sour cream dips, since the cream cheese had a bit more "texture" while still being soft):
Smoked salmon - canned boneless salmon, liquid smoke, block of cream cheese - break the salmon up to shreds with a fork if gums are sore. I've seen other canned salmon dip recipes skipping the liquid smoke and using other spices with lemon juice, but he loves the liquid smoke flavor.
Cream cheese covered with sweet-hot sauce. He loves Roasted Raspberry Chipotle sauce that we find at Kroger in our area, and I've seen other kinds of similar sauces, some using a different fruit such as blueberries, but the blueberries weren't pureed like the raspberry sauce. He also enjoyed Jezbel sauce over cream cheese - many variations using different fruit on the internet, but I keep it simple by using orange marmalade (but had to blenderize it during sore gums recovery). One blogger I follow used jalapeno jelly, but we haven't tried that yet - I'm sure it's good too. Oh, and he LOVES copycat Borsin; there's tons of recipes online using those keywords, but I kept it simple using onion, garlic, thyme, oregano and tons of freshly ground black pepper (so much I put him in charge of adding the black pepper LOL). The butter mixed with the cream cheese is SOOO yummy!
More Ritz toppers: PBJ (creamy, and jelly only, no jam, preserves, or marmalade), Deviled ham or potted chicken from the same makers, mixed with mayo or mustard.
Flavored cooked cereals like Cream of Wheat.
All kinds of fruit smoothies with full fat ice cream.
Although he enjoys eggs with some kind of topping (sausage gravy, salsa, melted cheese), he couldn't handle those toppings and became grumpy at the thought of me blenderizing them, which according to him would ruin sausage gravy or salsa LOL.
Get well soon!
Shreela - you are SO kind to share your good advice! Things are improving slowly - and I'm hoping to be back to normal sometime soon. It's great to learn from others who put so much effort into helping those they love get better. My best to you!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds awesome! I recently discovered your blog when searching for banana squash recipes and can't believe how many recipes on here I have to try....not sure if I will ever be able to try them all. BUT, I think I will have to start with this one...I love cream of mushroom soup. Thanks for sharing this!
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