My best buddy and I were hosting one of our dear friends this weekend who was in town for a visit.
We decided it would be fun to have a yummy dinner then play Wii and Xbox or watch a movie, or just hang out and chat.
And drink coffee!
We managed to accomplish all of those things and more!
I wanted to cook something that I would never get away with fixing for my family, but would feel decadent to my food loving buddies and I.
A good starting place was to choose a vegetable.
And what my friends, is possibly the worst vegetable on the planet (besides spinach) to children and husbands everywhere???
Now mind you I did very limited research on this topic.
As in...I never left my own dinner table!!!
Nope, its not broccoli.
I have 2 here who really dig broccoli.
And, cauliflower doesn't count either, just because I say it doesn't.
And no one really likes brussel sprouts until they learn how to cook 'em right, so those don't count either.
And lima beans aren't allowed in my house so that is not the answer!!
Hmmmm let's see what does that leave us with??
Beets and mushrooms.
I will give you a hint, it is not beets!
Can I just say ewwww.
I mean I like beets, but can't imagine a meal based around beets.
Although, there are probably plenty of you out there thinking the same thing about mushrooms!!
Well, I love mushrooms and fortunately so do both of my friends, so I decided to do a cream of Portobello mushroom soup!!
I proudly announced this intention to my family the evening before and after a long dramatic pause the whole family said...."ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww" and also remarked on how glad they were that they were gonna be out of town!!!
Ahhhh ha ha ha, evil chef Jen strikes again!
I am going to link to this recipe Cream of Portobello Mushroom Soup , not because I really used it, but because it is a good starting place for those of you who need specifics.
I didn't really have much intention about blogging this recipe, though I did take pictures as I went along with the intention of having pictures at least, taken for the day.
However, both of my friends said..."You are gonna write this out aren't you???"
I have a feeling one of them might actually cook it and the other will suggest that I need to cook it again!!
Ha ha, either way it will be nice to have a record of what I did for future reference.
So, once again here is a "no recipe" recipe for Cream of Portobello mushroom soup!!
I began with 4 hearty mushrooms.
I like to scrape out the "gills" from the underside and peel off the skin from the top.
It is fun to see how big of a chunk of gills you can get to come out at once.
Ok, fun to me! Fun is sooooooo relative, is it not??
Scraping the gills is a must. Peeling, I do believe is a preference!
Here they are ready for chopping.
I did a medium chop on them so the saute time wouldn't be too very long.
I then went outside to see what was still green in my poor frost bitten herb garden and was not surprised to find a willing shoot of rosemary! I snipped off a piece about 4 inches long to add to the mix.
Our other participating ingredients...
chicken stock, garlic, and a touch of white wine.
Oh, and I almost forgot....LEEKS!!
That's right folks I said it. Leeks!!
Both of my buddies outvoted me on this one and brought these to the house to add to the soup.
I must say I was a willing participant but ONLY because I had recently had a soup prepared by a friend which called for leeks that I happened to have purchased for her because I knew she was searching for them and I was at the store and saw them knowing she had been unsuccessful in her search, and the soup did not carry an "onion" flavor....it was just good!!! Real good.
There is just nothing like a nice long run on sentence, don't you agree!!!
And leeks are so pretty.
And I knew in the end I was going to use my immersion blender to puree this soup, so I knew I wouldn't get a random "bite" of leeky onion yuckness.
There is just nothing like made up words to describe certain things in life, don't you agree?!
My girl and I barely made it through the unfamiliar smell while we were chopping, but suffered through for the greater good.
So into the pot went a swirl of grapeseed oil and one and a half leeks to saute til clear-ish.
I was using a fancy garlic pepper today, but if I had been using fresh garlic it would have gone in here as well.
Then I added the mushrooms and cooked them down a bit too.
Next up was flour for thickening. I had read plenty of recipes and felt that 1 Tablespoon per mushroom was a good ratio.
The flour goes in and the whole thing starts to look like a train wreck. It had very disturbing clumping action which I just pressed on through, again knowing the blender would take out any remaining culprits.
Distressing as it may seem you must fight the clumpness and let the flour cook a bit before adding the chicken stock and wine and herbs and spices including salt, pepper, parsley and garlic.
(For this pot of soup I used one box of my favorite stock and about a cup of white wine. It fed the three of us nicely and we did share with my girl too who managed to choke down a few bites, really wanting to be a big girl and enjoy it!!)
I wanted the flavor of the rosemary without the fuss of it so I left the sprig intact to take out of the pot before whirling with the blender.
This concoction simmered for as long as I could stand to wait.
Oh, about 20 minutes or so.
I then gave it a mighty dose of immersion blending...removing all clumps and bumps and lumps. It was not a smooth soup, but it also wasn't clumpy, bumpy or lumpy either. I could have strained it, but wanted a bit of substance in my bowl.
Then I poured in what was left in the carton of the heavy cream; you know what was left after making and devouring two whipped cream topped chocolate pies this last week. (While I have the capability to personally eat 2 full chocolate pies in a week, I did share them with my family and guests!!)
Ohhhh, let's say about a half a cup.
Yeah, that sounds good! More or less would be just fine dependent upon your taste buds and waistline requirements!!! ha ha ha
At this point I stopped taking photos cause let's face it...mushroom soup is just not pretty!!!
I just let it gently simmer for a few more excruciating minutes and then gave up and served.
I was very hungry!!!
I think that about covers it.
My decadent soup mission was a success!!
When it comes to living life...
...it just doesn't get much better than sharing delicious food with best buddies.
Trust me, we didn't stop there!
It was just the beginning of a weekend of delicious bites and memory making activities!
I love you Tara and Je$$!!! Now go make some soup!
