Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ok, its a little labor intensive. This was meant to be a small glass of "Mushroom Latte" to be served before a meal, but I wanted a bowl of soup. I scaled this recipe down a little from the original and it made enough for two plus some leftovers, its pretty rich. The original recipe comes from the local restaurant, "The Supper Club", where we learned it at one of their cooking classes. These are the porportions I used:

2 1/2 pounds of crimini mushrooms, stemmed (keep them) and sliced
1 carrot rough chopped
1 medium onion rough chopped
2 cloves of garlic
2 roma tomatoes, rough chopped
1 package dried mushrooms (I used chantarelle since the store was out of porcini--grind them up in the food processor)
1/2 bunch of fresh thyme (the store didn't have fresh, so I used dried and it was fine)
1 largish shallot
2 cups of cream
sherry wine for deglazing
1/4 cup of canola oil
1 regular sized can of beef broth

Saute the stems, onions, carrots, garlic in 1/2 of the oil until slightly carmelized. Add the tomatoes, ground dry mushrooms and thyme saute for another three minutes or so, most of the liquid is absorbed at this point. Cover with water and let simmer for 1 1/2 hours. This makes a mushroom broth

Saute the sliced mushrooms in the rest of the oil until tender, drain and then add the juice from this into the simmering broth. The recipe then called to put these away for another use, or chop fine for this dish...I opted to keep in the pan and cook them down a little more, added the chopped shallot and some sherry wine and let them simmer about 20 minutes or so to cook down. I then added a shot of madeira wine to deglaze again. Then I put them in the food processor to chop up a bit.

After the broth has simmered, strain it and then strain it again (to get the bits of dried mushroom out). I added a can of beef broth at this point. Let that reduce down to almost half. They say to strain again, which I did, then add the cream. Let this reduce down about half, then I added the chopped mushrooms and let that heat through. Serve hot.

If you wanted it to be like the "latte"...froth it with a stick blender before serving and put it in little cups. It was good for a small bowl of soup with some sourdough bread on the side.