{"id":386,"date":"2014-04-21T11:18:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T16:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=386"},"modified":"2015-11-06T15:36:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T21:36:50","slug":"magic-mushrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=386","title":{"rendered":"Magic Mushrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D386&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_387\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Mushroom-Bowl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-387\" class=\"wp-image-387\" title=\"Mushroom Bowl\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Mushroom-Bowl-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Mushroom-Bowl-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Mushroom-Bowl-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-387\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8216;shrooms<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At our house mushrooms are magical, not in a crazy Timothy Leary kind of way, but because of fairies.<\/p>\n<p>As any parent of daughters knows, mushroom circles are known as fairy or pixie rings and serve as portals to the supernatural world. European and American folklore is filled with stories of mortals witnessing fairies coming and going through these circles.\u00a0 And more often than not the mortals are lured in, disappearing for months, years or forever.<\/p>\n<p>Heady stuff.<\/p>\n<p>As such, the preparation of mushrooms at our house is packed with significance.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m not sure whether some cooking techniques drain the fungi of their powers while others amplify them, but I do know that how you like your mushrooms says a lot about your nature. Our eldest, who is more spritely, prefers her mushrooms fresh in salads or all by themselves.\u00a0 Our youngest, the imp, likes hers cooked or, better yet, pulverized into a soup.\u00a0 We parents like them several ways\u2014as dressing for a warm spinach salad, as garnish for chicken stew or in a savory oniony paste known as duxelle, to name just a few.\u00a0 This represents the higher level of complexity in the adult brain although it could just as easily be symptomatic of the personality disorders brought on by lack of sleep.<\/p>\n<p>Further evidence of this is the adult love of fungi beyond mushrooms.\u00a0 I\u2019m speaking specifically about our beloved wine and beer, a gift from the mushroom\u2019s fungal cousin, yeast.\u00a0 Although cheese, the perfect companion to both beverages, also benefits from fungal intervention.\u00a0 How would we get blue cheeses, bries or my personal favorite chevre without the contribution of molds (another type of fungus)?<\/p>\n<p>But I digress.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get back to fairies.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I\u2019m saying we dress up in wings and tights every time we make mushroom soup.\u00a0 (Not all of us anyway.)\u00a0 Neither do I trade in my cooking spoon for a wand. But the goal aligns nicely with all of these accessories: to create flavors that transport us to another place, even another realm.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why this week\u2019s soup has one foot in the fungal world of childhood and one foot in that of adults.\u00a0 This mushroom soup, pureed as my daughter likes it, begins with a skillet large enough to saut\u00e9 the mushrooms and onions to the point of browning.\u00a0 If you use too small a pan and crowd your ingredients you run the risk of steaming them instead and the flavor\u2019s not the same.\u00a0 (This is true for most foods, actually.\u00a0 If you want to brown, you need enough room!).\u00a0 Next add the stock, half &amp; half and seasoning and simmer for a while longer.\u00a0 Then comes the blending to give the soup a nice, smooth consistency.<\/p>\n<p>Thus far it\u2019s pretty kid friendly.<\/p>\n<p>After that, though, you add blue cheese, stirring until it dissolves into the mix. Don\u2019t put in too much.\u00a0 It has a tendency to overwhelm the mushrooms, but if that\u2019s what you\u2019re looking for, feel free. Be warned, though, if you serve this soup outside, you may incur the wrath of the wee folk and face dire consequences.<\/p>\n<p>You might just disappear into a bowl.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Blue Cheese Mushroom Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n1 \u00bd T butter<br \/>\n1 \u00bd cups onion, chopped<br \/>\n1 \u00bd lbs, crimini mushrooms, sliced<br \/>\n6 cups chicken or vegetable stock<br \/>\n1 \u00bd cups half &amp; half<br \/>\nSalt &amp; pepper, to taste<br \/>\n\u00bd cup blue cheese, crumbled<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Melt the butter in a large skillet\u00a0 and saut\u00e9 the onion and mushrooms together until lightly browned (6-8 minutes).<\/li>\n<li>Place mushrooms and onions into a 3 quart sauce pot, add stock, half &amp; half and seasoning.\u00a0 Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. (Watch it, though.\u00a0 Simmering anything with dairy can quickly get out of control)<\/li>\n<li>(optional) Puree the soup with an immersion or standing blender.<\/li>\n<li>After 30-45 minutes stir in the blue cheese until it dissolves.<\/li>\n<li>Heat the soup through once more and serve.\u00a0 Either for lunch with a sandwich on crusty bread or on a cool spring night with a garlicky pasta.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit:\u00a0 A simple bowl of mushrooms photographed by the author.\u00a0 My self-proclaimed china-freak wife would probably point out that the bowl is from Lindt Stymeist. I\u2019m fine with that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you have any otherworldly experiences as a result of this posting, I\u2019d love to hear about them, but call 911 first.\u00a0 Thanks for reading.\u00a0 Thanks even more for sharing, commenting and participating.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding. Am I a fun guy or what? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At our house mushrooms are magical, not in a crazy Timothy Leary kind of way, but because of fairies. As any parent of daughters knows, mushroom circles are known as fairy or pixie rings and serve as portals to the supernatural world. European and American folklore is filled with stories of mortals witnessing fairies coming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,48,82,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheese","category-dairy","category-mushrooms","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}