Cream of Mushroom Soup

A noble soup embiggens
the smallest man

So you managed to survive the many perils of Black Friday. The changing weather, the crazed drivers, the advertisers ripping families out of the back seats of cars and forcibly marching them into department stores. You've bested them all. All that's left is for you to enjoy the late Autumn weather, have some sort of festive holiday drink, and celebrate life. Unless you live in Chicago where, despite over a century of searching, nobody has been able to find the user manual and change the weather setting off of "random." We have snow on the ground, ice everywhere, and by the weekend it's supposed to be 50 and stormy. So going outside isn't the best idea right now. You're better off huddling for warmth in your home and waiting out the rest of the Holiday Season™ in the comfort of your home or survival bunker. In the even that you're forced to leave your home and venture out into the Elements® it's important to remember that you have delicious soup to warm you up at home. So either get to work on your vivid hallucinations, or make some soup.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Cremini Mushrooms
1 standard-issue Onion
5 cups Milk (Preferably milk from a cow of some kind)
2 cloves Garlic
1 TBSP Butter
1 TBSP Olive Oil
2 TSBP Flour
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Rubbed Sage
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
Salt

Cream of mushroom soup has the distinguished honor of being one of the most readily available things you can grab in a can at any supermarket's soup aisle. If you've ever eaten those soups, you know they taste like gelatinous salt. And I'm not knocking gelatinous salt. At the very least, it would be an excellent name for a debut album in the 90s. But we're striving for something better with this recipe, so the first thing you'll need to do is forget everything you know about cream of mushroom soup. Other than the name, and the fact that you're about to make some. Those are important tidbits to hold on to. But forget everything else. Once your amnesia is complete, dice your onion. Saute it in your butter and oil over medium heat along with a standard-sized human's pinch of salt. Let your onions cook down, stirring occasionally, for about 6 minutes, during which you'll be cleaning and slicing your mushrooms. It doesn't really matter how big or small you cut your mushrooms as long as you're consistent, so it's down to what your preference is. But keep in mind that this is a soup, so ideally everything should be able to fit easily into a spoon.

Welcome to flavor country. US passport line to the left.

Once your onions are soft and golden, toss your mushrooms into the party along with your black pepper, sage, cumin, and another standard-sized human's pinch of salt. Let that whole mushroom butter onion nonsense cook together for about 4 minutes, or when the mushrooms get soft and the whole room starts to smell like deliciousness. Mix in your flour and wait for everything to get kind of gross and sludgy. You know, like you after Thanksgiving dinner. Now it's time to slowly add in your milk, stirring all the while so that all of your flour mix incorporates, and you don't end up with any sad lumps left in there. Heat that whole thing up and keep it stirring to get it to thicken, but be careful not to boil it. Then salt it to your taste, and guzzle it down while  you watch other suckers dealing with the snow, wind, hail, rain, and then snow again.