Meatless Monday - Mushroom soup

Grey soup? Bleah
Mushrooms? Yech

Whoa! It's not that bad, mushrooms can do taste good and this soup is really easy to cook.

Ingredients: 

• Garlic, of course
• Chilli, naturally! 1 small killer one if you're game, or a shake or two of dried
• Potatoes, 3-4 small, roughly chopped. I left the skin on - fibre is good for us
• Onions, 2 small, again roughly chopped - peeled because onion skin doesn't taste good
• Mushrooms, a few generous handfulls, roughly chopped. Wild would be good if you're confident you know what you're picking. Note: Please be extremely confident if you harvest wild mushrooms. People die slowly and painfully from organ failure when they get it wrong. 
• Salt and pepper. A pinch of the first and a grind of the second. 
• Butter, a small dollop
• Wine, a decent slosh
• Stock or a stock cube. Possibly a cup or two, maybe a bit more 

• Yogurt for topping
• Parsley or coriander to add colour

Method:

• Melt butter (it tastes nicer than olive oil in this soup) I use salt free
• Add onion, garlic, chilli, s & p and stir till it smells wonderful
• Pour a glass of wine, check quality, slosh some in the pan - by this time, the smell is heavenly
• Add potato, stir while you sample the wine again. You may need to add a bit more if it's evaporated too fast 
• When the potato has softened a bit add the mushrooms and stir
• Add stock to almost cover the veggies. I didn't have any fresh so used a chicken stock cube and boiling water
• and that's pretty much it. Bring to a simmer, enjoy the wine then buzz the soup enthusiastically carefully so it doesn't splatter all over the kitchen which is a real pain to clean, especially when it dries and gets baked onto the stovetop.

Enjoy with a slice of wholegrain toast. I think this soup would be good with brown lentils. Next time I'll rinse a handful and add them at the same time as the mushrooms. Please don't use the canned variety, it's so easy to use dried ones and then you know there aren't any additives.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the first bowl and had to go back for seconds to get a photo ;-) See how the coriander makes it look less boring. Arty types will manage to make the yogurt look elegant - I was more interested in functionality! A sprinkle of paprika would also look (and taste) good, or for the real fire lovers, some fresh chopped chilli.
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