SOUP AND SALAD

Cream of mushroom soup.

My take on the wedge salad CA and I enjoyed last
week at Outback Steak House.
(This was obviously not styled. I decided to take the photo after plating
our salads in the most size-appropriate bowl choice. I realize the
combination of the real food  and the china pattern looks like
someone threw up! But, other than that, isn't it a gorgeous salad?)

It's cold and wintery. Soup is all that's on my mind. Cream of mushroom and the Pioneer Woman's Hearty White Chili. I spend a bit of time looking for a Cream of Mushroom soup recipe that I remember from somewhere recent... In the end I find one on the Internet and adjust it just a bit.

As I prepare the mushrooms I default to a technique MK demonstrated to me the first time we met in 2000--peeling them!

Use a dry paper towel and rub away from and all around the stem

 to loosen the top layer, and peel away.

One down and a pound to go.

See, they're spotless!

I've always had an adversion to the little black bits that cling to fresh mushrooms, and I refuse to deal with any but the freshest, whitest, cleanest. Kitchen wisdom says not to wash mushrooms, but YUCK! They are grown in manure! Peeling them solves this issue entirely for me. Then, all you have to do is trim off the stems.