Vegan Paris Mushroom Soup (French Fridays with Dorie)

My day began the usual way: feed the kids, fall down, have coffee (maybe I should have had my coffee before I attempted my "outside" chores), check email, then more coffee. (I'm okay, scraped up my knee. . . and my palm, you know catching myself from the fall.) So, back to the computer, something caught my eye on my blog roll: Paris Mushroom Soup on Tasty Trix. (I met Trixie waaay back via our blogs via Food Buzz and am really happy our paths crossed!). So I saw her post today: Whoa! Mushrooms. Soup. LOVE both of those! Then I read on and discovered there's a little cookin' thing going on every Friday on French Fridays with Dorie to honor and showcase cooking from the new cookbook: Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan. I have another Dorie cookbook--(she's known for her incredible baking talent): Baking with Julia. She actually got to work with and bake with Julia! Sadly, Julia is gone. Double sad that I've never attempted French cooking, well. . . not much of it anyhow. And triple sad for me: Santa did not bring me this French Table cookbook for Christmas. (That's since been taken care of.) 

French cooking has been a neglected genre for me since I began taking the whole idea of "cooking" seriously (I was eleven or was it twenty-nine?). Plus, (horror of horrors!) I've never read Mastersing the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs either. Really. Never. I did, however, see the Julie and Julia movie, does that count? (Well, I read the book first and liked it better than the movie. Sorry.)

Let's be very honest here: when one hears French cooking, does one really think: Ah, Vegan!

I think not. However, I love food, well most of it anyway. More than food and cooking though is proving to folks that being vegan does not mean being "denied". So I say, Why not French on Friday? So I am officially unveiling for my first cook-along today's French Friday selection: Paris Mushroom Soup (veganized). Of all the selections in Dorie's cookbook to translate into vegan, I have to say, I sort of lucked out here. I mean, they weren't on "roasting a chicken" day. Joining anything for me is sort of a big deal. It's now an "expectation". I've lived willy-nilly here in my part of the blogosphere with nary a peep into any other goings-on. Heck, I don't even Tweet for goodness sake. But this Friday and Dorie thing--I am very excited. (Just in case you are wondering about a "chicken" recipe or "beef"--it is not mandatory to cook every recipe. But don't think I won't try.) Of course, to cook-along, you will need to buy the book. To check out other joining rules, go to the French Fridays site. I wrote to the lovely folks at FFWD just to be sure they would not mind having me along for the ride . . . as my vegan self. If they had said, "No way!", I'd have Trixie to blame. They were SO nice, I got a lovely email from Laurie over there and she gave me the blessing and a,Yes, please do come cook with us! (Thank You!)

So here is my Paris Mushroom Soup for my first entry into an already established list of food stuffs from FFWD. I will not be posting the recipes. I will, however, offer up what vegan substitutions I made for the Friday recipe. For the soup--this was a piece of cake really, and I will tell you: Best. Mushroom. Soup. Ever. Dorie says she had this soup in France and that when it was served, they would put this "salad" with it. (Note that the "salad" in this recipe appears on top of my soup in the form of thinly sliced mushrooms and some scallion.) That "salad" part sort of confused me until I read the entire recipe and Dorie's wonderful introduction to the soup. (Her stories and writing style are part of the charm of this cookbook.)

Dr. Thyme and I so loved this. I was very sorry I had not made the full batch. I halved the recipe because Friday night is usually pizza night--so not to throw too much a curve for hubby, I kept the pizza on the menu, but snuck this soup in on him. Yes, you can be vegan and be French! My vegan changes for this soup were:

-used vegan vegetable spread in place of butter (I think you'll see this a lot on my Friday Dorie stuff)

- used Silk Soy Creamer in place of heavy cream (you might see this a lot, too)

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