Warm the heart, soul and fingers with Creamy Hungarian Mushroom Soup

This past week in Saskatchewan, it was below -30 C (-22 F) nearly every day.
   Unfortunately, that’s typical of the weather around here in the winter, and it’s why I like to have an arsenal of good soup recipes at the ready.
   There’s nothing like a hearty bowl of soup to warm the heart, soul and appendages.
   My husband and I made a great new soup for the first time this week that I can add to the arsenal: Creamy Hungarian Mushroom Soup (click for the recipe) from Eating Well magazine.
   It’s a yummy bowl of goodness with mushrooms, dill, milk, potatoes and sour cream. With Eating Well’s crackdown on the ingredients, it was lower in calories and fat than the typical soups of this type.
   It was just the kind of soup my grandmother would make. Eating it made me think of her fabulous borscht.
   The recipe says that Hungarian is the preferred type of paprika for the recipe. We bought paprika labelled “Hungarian” at a specialty foods store a while ago and so were able to use it, but regular paprika at the supermarket will work fine.
   The recipe also calls for low-fat milk; we used one per cent.
   The soup takes a while to come to a simmer, so patience is a virtue when preparing it.
   Creamy Hungarian Mushroom Soup was very easy to make, and the leftovers warm up beautifully in the microwave.
   Sliced mushrooms and diced onion are cooked in oil in a skillet, then flour, paprika, beef broth, low-fat milk and diced russet potatoes are added and the soup is brought to a simmer.
   After simmering for five minutes, the soup is removed from the heat, and low-fat sour cream is stirred in.
   Serve and warm yourself up!