Potato & Mushroom Soup

Yield – 8 servings

Preparation Time – 10 minutes

Cooking Time – 40 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced
• 2 medium carrots, finely diced
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 4 large or 6 small potatoes
• 1/2 cup dried mushrooms, broken up
• 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
• 3 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
• 7 cups water
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons flour

Directions

• In a pot on the stove, heat the oil and add the finely chopped vegetables (except the potatoes). I usually do this in large batches and freeze cubes of the cooled vegetable mixture for use in soups, stews, etc.
• Once the vegetables are soft, add the water to the pot.
• Cut potatoes into cubes, add to the water in the pot. Add veggies (if they are frozen into cubes), the marjoram, the salt and the pepper. Bring to a boil.
• Meanwhile, soak broken up mushrooms in 1 cup of hot stock. Add to soup.
• Boil until tender.
• Make a slurry: add the flour to cold water and stir until smooth. Slowly add hot liquid (from the soup) to the slurry to bring the slurry to a similar temperature as the soup. Add this mixture to the soup. If you add the flour (or cornstarch) to hot water, you will get lumps, if you add the cold slurry to the hot soup, you will also get lumps.
• Boil for five minutes.
• Serve now or tomorrow. This, like many soups and stews, is even better when reheated the next day.