5 Mushroom Soup

The five mushrooms in this rich, easy soup were white, crimini, shitake, maitake and enoki, all distinctive and delicious. I sauteed a shallot, a clove of garlic thinly sliced and a small onion in olive oil, then simmered them with a bay leaf and sherry, added all of the mushrooms, more sherry, covered for a while for rich broth, then added water, let some water boil away and that was it.

I served it two ways to please children with different ideas about what comprises a dinner. I blended a lot of it and called it sauce and served it over brown rice which was true comfort food. I left the rest chunky in its dark rich broth in which the enoki mushrooms were like noodles (I often use them as a noodle substitute in Asian dishes or with tomato sauce) but found the children liked the broth but not all of the mushroom chunks so in the end I finally blended the rest as well. I still have a bit and might even freeze some. After long hospital days I find it to be a nice low calorie warm thick drink in a coffee mug, cozy after a day of being blasted by air conditioning.