A hearty mushroom soup for a cozy London.

When a rainy day comes in London, a soup is always the best remedy. That and of course a good book, green tea and a comfortable blanket to cover yourself in. One of the soups I love making is the creamy mushroom soup. But as cream is quite heavy, I tend to only put in 1/2 of a 284ml bottle of single cream. 

Creamy Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

A bunch of                  assorted mushrooms - brown, white, shiitake, chinese if you will

3 stalks of                   celery - diced

4 - 5 medium sized      carrots - diced

1 large                        yellow onion - diced (if you don't have yellow, use red)

1 thumb sized              ginger - diced

3 cloves                      garlic - finely chopped

A bunch of                  fresh basil leaves - finely sliced

2 stalks of                   fresh rosemary - put in whole and to be removed later

1/2 a portion of           284ml bottle of single cream

3 large bowls of          water

                                  Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Firstly dice up all vegetables. You have the option of putting the onions, ginger and garlic in a food processor and zap them up to smaller pieces to quicken the process. But remember to roughly chop your ginger and onion as you don't want your food processor to go 'kaputt' before you can start using it.
2. Heat up a sizeable pot and pour some olive oil*. When oil is heated up, add in blended ingredients. Once the aroma of the blended ingredients starts filling the air, add in the celery and carrots first. Reason being is both of these vegetables take longer to cook. Even though you might be boiling them at the end, cooking them first will help in quickening the cooking process.
3. Next add in the mushrooms and continue stirring. Once you can see the mushrooms sweating, add in the water. Bring it to a boil before adding in the rosemary, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Reduce heat and let it simmer.
4. Once you see all the vegetables have absorbed in the water and are soft to the touch, get your hand held blender ready or prepare your blender. Before you start blending the soup, remove the stalks of rosemary as the sticks do not break regardless of how long you cook it. Start blending after with the hand held blender and you will see the soup turn into pulp. If you don't own a hand held blender, you can use a blender. Be careful however when you use a blender. As the soup is hot, you will need to allow your blender jug (if made of glass) to cool down before you start cleaning it. Going back to blending it,  make sure you run it through blender for a good few minutes ensuring everything is fully reduced to a pulp. There is of course the possibility that you might miss a few bits here and there.
5. Reboil the pulp before adding in the cream. Do not over boil the pulp as you might find yourself a discoloured soup. Turn the gas off and stir in the cream. Too much cream makes it heavy to finish a bowl, so just add in 1/2 of the bottle.
6. Scoop up a portion and serve with freshly baked french bread or dinner rolls. 

You can buy semi baked french bread from the supermarket and continue the baking process at home. Remember to follow the instruction as you do not want to have a hard slice of bread. This recipe can serve up to 4 people in sizeable soup bowls. If you are a meat person, you can fry up some bacon and combine it into the soup before you blend it. Or alternatively add in the bacon slices and condiments. If you're serving this up for a dinner party, place the bacon slices in the centre of the soup and place a basil leave over the bacon slices.

I had a fantastic time devouring the soup. I'm sure you will too.

Love,

The Innovative Baker.