(No) Cream of Mushroom Soup

My dad suggested making a cream of mushroom soup with all of the leftover mushrooms from our meat fondue last weekend.  Great idea.  Particularly since, the day prior, Logan had actually eaten some of the (no) cream of vegetable soup we had all been eating for lunch.  And actually kept begging for more soup when there was no more to give, despite there being a tiny, tiny slice of sour cherry cheesecake in front of him at that point.  Go figure.  If anyone has these kids figured out, please, please, let me in on the secret...

Logan really enjoyed this one too, and asked for both a second and a third helping. Yay!!!  I also found it to be quite nice.

a little grumpy, but he liked the soup

In fact, we all liked it so much that I whipped up a huge second batch of this today, with 6 packs of mushrooms (well, they were on sale for 99 cents each). 

I got my recipe off of All Recipes, but made a few modifications to make it that much more delicious.

5 C sliced fresh mushrooms
2 tbsp. butter 
1 1/2 C chicken broth
1/2 C chopped onion
1/8 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tbsp. sherry (I omitted this, because I didn't have any, but I'm sure it'd be delicious)
béchamel sauce (follow the instructions in this link, but using 3 tbsp. butter, 3 tbsp. of flour and 1 C of milk)

1.  In a large saucepan, cook onion and mushrooms in 2 tbsp. of butter until tender.  

2.  Pour in the chicken broth and add spices and sherry.  

3.  Make the béchamel sauce and add to the mushroom/broth mixture.  

4.  In blender or food processor, or using an immersion blender, purée the mixture, leaving some chunks of vegetable in it, if you would like. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Difficulty level: moderate to difficult, due to the béchamel.  But once you know how to make one, this recipe is super quick and easy.