Vegetarian Tortellini Mushroom Soup
Big old pot of traditional chicken soup cooking away on the stove, but I’m experimenting with a mushroom stock based vegetarian soup as well.
Mushroom stock
- 1 stalk celery
- 1/2 medium onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 carrot
- 3 handfuls white button mushrooms
- 3 or 4 cups water
- 1 bay leaf
- tsp thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
Dice the garlic, celery, onions and mushrooms finely. Seriously brutalize those shrooms. Sautee the lot in the pot, then add water. Add spices, allow to simmer for about 45 minutes. Strain through a filter of some kind (cheesecloth, paper towels, coffee filters, whatever), and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Dont skip the squeezing. Mushrooms hang on to liquids, and squeezing that liquid out of the mushroom sludge you’ll find you have will release all of that fantastic flavor back into the stock, keeping it from tasting thin. Return the filtered stock to pot to begin soup.
Now on to the finished soup.
- 2 handfuls mushrooms*
- 3 cups mushroom stock
- 2 handfuls cooked cheese tortellini
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 medium onion
- 2 stalk celery
- 2 carrots
- 1 shot of Guinness
- 1 cup water
- Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Chop the lot into bite/soup sized pieces and toss them into your mushroom stock base. Simmer quietly for about 30, 40 minutes. Cook the tortellini separately in water and add just before serving.
* Your choice of shrooms. We happen to be fond of white button, so that’s what I’m using. If you use a dried mushroom, you’ll want to soak them beforehand, and use the liquid you soaked them in instead of the water.