Mushroom & Leek Soup

Oh, it was so good.

I've always enjoyed Potato Leek Soup on the rare occasion that I have it, but I've never really done anything with leeks before. In fact, I don't recall ever having anything else with leeks. I tried out a recipe recently for Potato Leek Soup, and liked (but didn't love) it. Too potato-y. What I did love, was the smell of the leeks sauteeing in the butter. It was then that leeks joined mushrooms and asparagus in the club of vegetables I'm having a love affair with.

But I had no idea what to do with them yet, so I ran a search on Epicurious.com and added a few leek recipes to my recipe box, including Mushroom & Leek Soup with Thyme Cream. How tasty does that sound? Two of my loves in one soup! And it's soup! I love soup!

(Yes, I stole the picture from the recipe... still no replacement camera)

Unfortunately it got hot here. Really hot. Saturday and Sunday were up above 100 degrees. Soup was just not going to happen. But then it started to cool off this week, and today felt cool enough that I may just be able to pull off soup.

I had made sure I had all the ingredients, but I hadn't read the instructions yet. So when I got home from work, I printed out the recipe and started to read through it.

Uh-oh. Apparently I should have started the night before. The Thyme Cream is supposed to chill for at least two hours, and then be brought out of the refrigerator one hour before using it to bring it back to room temperature. Hmm.... I wasn't going to wait. I would try the soup without the Thyme Cream, and make the whole thing another time. (So use your imagination to remove the cream from the picture above, and that is the soup I made :)

Clearly, Bobby and I aren't 8 people, so I had to cut the recipe in 1/4, but I didn't follow that exactly either. I used a little more leek, flour, chicken stock, and thyme than called for. I just happened to have a half a leek left from something I made earlier this week and wanted to use it up, so instead of 3/4 of a leek, I used 1 1/2. I didn't want left over chicken stock, so I just used the whole 16 oz. box, and I upped the amount of flour to 2 tbsp. due to the increase in stock. Since it wouldn't be in the cream, I used a full teaspoon of thyme.

I also didn't sautee the mushrooms and leeks seperately. I guessed they did this so all the veggies could feel the bottom of the pan, but I wasn't making nearly as much. Instead sauteed the mushrooms for 3 minutes, then added the leeks and sauteed another 5.

Okay, maybe I made an entirely different soup. But it was pretty damn good. Bobby's doesn't usually even care for soup, and he even said it was really good. The mushroom flavor was definetly dominant, but I also loved the consistency - from the picture I was expecting clear, brothy soup, but the flour gave it a rich, creamy texture.

I will definetly be making it again, and I'll try it with the Thyme Cream next time. I wonder how it would taste with some shitake and oyster mushrooms...