Creamy three-mushroom bisque with buttery garlic croutons

My husband asked recently about a mushroom soup, so when I was at the grocery store recently I picked up a big package each of sliced baby portabellas and sliced white button mushrooms.    This their story.  

1st, starting yesterday, roast a chicken and make stock overnight from the bones.     WHAT?   You didn't want to roast a chicken just to make mushroom soup?   Ok.  In that case you'll need about 1.5 quarts of chicken or veggie broth.   

Rinse the mushrooms well, while your soup pot or dutch oven heats with a turn of olive oil.     Add the mushrooms, cover and let them cook down.    Stir once in a while.     

Meanwhile crush up a good handful of a more flavorful dried mushroom into some hot stock.   I had dried porcinis on hand, but there are lots of different ones available.   

Once the mushrooms are cooked, pull out a cup or so into a bowl (for garnish) and in the pot with the remaining mushrooms add about 1 1/2 quarts of chicken broth, some dried onion (or sautee a chopped fresh one), some garlic powder, thyme, ground black pepper, nutmeg and about a cup of white wine.    A dash or two of Worcestershire sauce is good too.     Let it all simmer for 30-60 minutes.  

Then use your immersion blender to puree well, taste to see if you need more salt, then add about a cup of half and half or cream.      (No immersion blender?   Food processor or blender will also work, but be careful with hot soup and it takes up more room in the dishwasher)

Serve  garnished with croutons and the reserved mushrooms.  

Goat cheese (chevre), more cream, cream fraiche, bread crumbs ... all other good garnish choices! 

Happy Souper Bowl Day

Doctored Soups: Corn and Roasted Pepper Soup; Tortellini and Spinach Soup

I love a good soup, made from scratch. With a homemade long brewed stock. But during the winter, especially when our lives are very busy and/or we're fighting illness, I want to eat soup more often than I have bones to make homemade stock.

So instead, frequently I doctor prepared soups:

Trader Joes Corn & Pepper soup:

+ frozen corn

+ some type of already cooked protein (in this case, Langostino Tails, which I've been dying to try. Ok, but I wouldn't buy them again) Canned chicken, frozen shrimp, leftover poultry or sausage would all work.

Heat and serve!

Another soup - tortellini & spinach soup.

Chicken broth:

Add some flavors:

frozen tortellini:

+ some frozen spinach

Eagles Green: Kale, sausage and chickpea soup

Note: Due to a spammer, comments have been turned off for this post, and will be moderated from now on. Sorry!


A hearty winter soup, with lots of healthy leafy greens - and in keeping with our green theme here in Philadelphia!


Start by chopping and sauteeing two large onions, then cooking in a bit of bacon grease or olive oil until translucent:





Dump them into the crockpot.



Peel and chop a one pound carrot:









Oh - you don't have a giant carrot? Then just use a few smaller ones. Add them to the crockpot too.



Brown about two pounds of italian sausage, casings removed. (Hot or sweet? depends - do you like bites of spicy heat in your soup?)

Open and drain two cans of chick peas. Throw them in too. This is the ultra fancy Walmart store brand. We're high fallutin that way.

Wash and rip up a whole bunch of kale. (I would say 8-10 cups of raw leaves) I seasoned with just a touch of salt while cooking. Sautee briefly in a pan, in oil or bacon grease, before adding to crockpot.

To this add 8 -10 cups of liquid - either chicken broth, stock, vegetable broth or just water with concentrated chicken bullion. If you heat the liquid in the microwave first it will save a good bit of time before the soup simmers in the crockpot.

Cook for at least three hours to allow the kale to fully soften and all the flavors to merge. Serve with bread and butter, or popcorn, or crackers, or just a spoon!

101: chicken stock

Sometimes I read cookbooks where the author seems to think we're still cooking on these:

Especially when they say it takes hours to make chicken stock. Yes, good chicken stock must simmer for hours. But that doesn't mean you need to WATCH it simmer! Almost everyone has a crockpot - perfect for chicken broth.

Place chicken bones from one or two chickens in a crockpot. I recently started putting only the large bones in the crockpot. It reduces the mess in straining it later. Add any or all of the following: a few whole peppercorns, a bay leaf, a quartered onion (or if you are quite frugal, save the ends of the onions you normally discard), a chopped carrot, a chopped stalk of celery.

Simmer on your lowest setting overnight. Allow to cool for an hour or more, then pour into a holding container through a strainer.