Sunday 9 October 2016

Puffball soup

I love the fact that my children have an astute awareness of the countryside and have fostered my love of foraging. A couple of weeks ago whilst driving home across the estate after an ad hock outing, the children suddenly spotted a collection of puffball mushrooms in one of the cow fields.






Now I'm very cautious where mushrooms are concerned and will only eat those that I know to be edible. There are many varieties out there that have poisonous lookalike, and those I steer well clear of, it simply isn't worth the risk. The giant puffball however is a mushroom that is pretty obvious and rather beautiful really. It's basically a giant ball of pure mushroomy white stuff. They are easy to spot from a distance as they stand out so well from their surroundings as white blobs on the landscape.
Within minutes they returned laden with the autumn delights, their aroma is very distinctly mushroom and can be rather overpowering in the confined space of a car!
Our latest find was turned into soup today and rather scrumptious it was too! Soup is unbelievably simple to make, I rarely use a recipe as most follow the same basic principles. Here's how if you haven't tried it before:

Firstly chop an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic. Fry them in a saucepan until they are soft in with olive oil or I use coconut oil as it copes pretty well with being heated.
Add a stock cube or tablespoonful of vegetable bouillon powder then add some water (I kind of guess amounts here, perhaps half to a pint of water).
Peel and roughly chop your puffball ensuring that the flesh is white and fresh looking.
Add a little salt and pepper and cover and boil.
Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20-30 minutes covered (add more water if necessary) then whizz with a blender, add a splash of cream and serve.
Mmmmmm

Enjoy!!

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