A Tasty Soup, Made of Leftovers

While I was out of town, my husband made himself some steak. Occasionally, I'm a nice wife and leave him nice things to eat, like some strips of filet mignon marinating in Italian dressing in a zip-loc bag. For Christmas, someone gave us four huge filets, so I cut off a bit and marinated it for a salad the next day. Instead of eating the steak with stuff we already had, he bought a box of mushrooms to add to it. This was nice, but I knew he had no plans for the remaining five mushrooms. We also had a little leftover fresh baby spinach, some heavy cream and an onion on its last legs. This is what I made:

Start with a roux (I love to say that!) Stir equal parts flour and butter together in a pot, about 2 tablespoons each.

Add a chopped onion, sautéeing it in the roux.

Add the baby spinach (I had a couple of handfuls) and five leftover baby portobello mushrooms, sliced.

By the end, you'll add 2-3 cups vegetable stock. You may want to add a splash now, so the vegetables don't stick to the bottom of the pot.

When the mushrooms are brown and the spinach is wilted, add the rest of the stock. I need to make some for my little pescetarians, but I used Trader Joe's brand this time.

Add a few shakes of lemon pepper and dried thyme. If you have fresh thyme, add a bunch of that instead. I only had dried.

Add a heaping teaspoon of sugar. Yup. A little sugar makes everything taste...fuller or something. You remember that map of the tongue from ninth grade biology? The map that showed which parts of the tongue tasted different flavors? Well, I hear that's a myth. And maybe it is, but I still think you need a little bit of sweet to make your savory, sour and spicy stuff taste bigger.

Heat the whole thing and, at the last minute, stir in a heaping tablespoon of heavy cream. I had heavy cream left over from something, but I suppose milk or half and half would work too.

My kids and I loved it. Baby J recently got himself a booster seat so he can sit with the rest of us. He's not quite coordinated enough for soup yet, so I put a piece of baguette in a bowl and soaked it with the soup. He ate it with a fork and it was still pretty messy, but not as messy as straight up soup would have been.

Namasté, y'all!