I love cream of anything.

And as we continue to be brave and creative with our culinary exploits, I want to make sure I publish recipes that feel decadent but not be considered real cheating. Soups are a great way to accomplish this.

You will want to play around with the amount of each seasoning to your liking.

You will need:

* Button Mushrooms (or your favorite)

* Heavy Whipping Cream

* Onions (try this with a yellow onion and with a sweet onion, see which you prefer)

* Grated Parmesan

* Dried Thyme

* Salt and Pepper

* Chicken Broth (or beef, if you prefer – bone broth is an excellent option)

First thing you’ll want to do is wash your mushrooms if they aren’t already. You can do this with a soft kitchen towel or with just your fingers.

Put them aside and cut a portion of your onion.

Again, you will want to choose how much of each you’ll need depending on how many people you are feeding. I am using the Philips Soup Maker and am feeding two with another day of leftovers. I used a full carton of mushrooms as pictured, and then an additional half carton. I used the amount shown in onion (about one third).

The broth I chose was intentional. There are so many store bought broths that contain sugar or canola oil in the ingredients. As you can see, this brand and specific kind (free range) had neither.

Less than one total gram of sugar and none in the ingredients (or canola oil, for example) is like hitting the lotto. Another great option are the bone broths by Kettle & Fire.

I throw all of these ingredients in the soup maker, top with some salt, pepper and the thyme and let it rip (one third cream, the rest broth). If you don’t have a soup maker, soften everything in a crock pot and use a food processor or immersion blender.

As I wrote, taste and see what you’d like to add more of. Since I bought low sodium broth I needed to add more salt. I like to buy low sodium or no salt added pantry items because then I can control the amount of salt and more importantly, the quality of it. Not all salt is created equal. For example, table salt is about as undesirable as it gets; it’s dead food. You get nothing from it.

When choosing salts and don’t have a local place to sample different salts, go with a sea salt (we prefer smoked sea salt) or Himalayan Pink Salt. HPS is loaded with trace minerals like Spring Water. It took me a few times of cooking to like the flavor but now I do and we use it all the time. Same with pepper – try to get black peppercorns unless you have a digestive issue; black pepper can exacerbate symptoms associated with IBS for example.

When plating, I added just a bit of parsley for color but you’ll definitely want to add your parmesan and stir.

Another option would be to put this over chicken, top with cheese and bake in the oven. The soup will keep in the fridge for several days and freeze very well.

Dish from Fortessa