Ingredients
½ lb baby Bella mushrooms, chopped
1 T olive oil
½ c uncooked wild rice
½ T dried parsley
1 t all-purpose seasoning
½ t dried thyme
¼ t salt
2 ¼ c water
2 t Roasted Beef Better Than Bouillon
1 c half-and-half
Directions
1 In a Dutch oven, sauté mushrooms in oil until tender. Add the rest of ingredients except half-and-half. Bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer covered for 35–60 minutes (check cooking time on your wild rice packaging). Add cream and heat through.
This recipe did not yield what I was expecting. I was expecting earthy, nutty and creamy. There was a mystery bitterness that I couldn’t understand at first. But by tasting the soup over and over, I believe it came from the dried parsley. So, I think the downfall was actually using dried parsley and thyme where I would normally substitute fresh herbs. So, three lessons were learned with this recipe: 1) Use fresh herbs if possible by tripling the amount given on a recipe for using dried herbs! The bitterness from the dried parsley overruled the nice earthiness of the mushrooms. 2) Cook rice before putting it into a soup. The consistency I was looking for was toothy not crunchy! If putting uncooked rice into a soup to cook, read the directions on the rice packaging not the directions for the soup. The soups directions said to put the rice into the soup and simmer for 25 minutes. The directions on the wild rice said to simmer for 60 minutes! But really, I prefer cooking the rice (with a little broth in the water for flavor) before it goes into a soup. And 3) Use heavy cream where appropriate. Normally, I substitute half-and-half, but this soup could’ve used the umph from heavy cream that half-and-half just didn’t have to give.
If you’d like to see the original recipes my posts are based on or read Taste of Home’s article that inspired my 50 Soups in 25 Weeks blogging, go to: https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/soups-to-keep-you-warm-this-fall/.
