My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll be honest, when I first received this book, I really struggled with cooking from it. I love soups, stews and chowders, but when it’s high 90’s outside with humidity through the roof, they’re the last thing I actually want to cook! Now there are some chilled soups in this book, but unfortunately, my family is NOT a fan of them. We have a nice, cool spell come through, and I’m in the mood for soup!

I love mushrooms! Growing up I was not a fan, but now I love mushrooms about any way I’ve cooked them, so I was immediately drawn to the mushroom soups. First up was the Cream of Mushroom and Walnut Soup. Yum! Great with the walnuts, but if you leave them out you have an amazing soup that works well on its own or with anything you would normally use cream of mushroom soup. It definitely makes me never want to use a can of mushroom soup again! I’m looking forward to the Cream of Porcini Mushroom and Salmon Soup next. There are multiple mushroom soups in this book, so it could take me a bit to get through them all!

We love potato soup around here. Potato Soup with Toasted Breadcrumbs is a nice alternative to my classic potato soup. The soup is blended until creamy with part of the breadcrumbs, then served tipped with the rest of the crumbs, parsley and crispy bacon on top! Yes, please!!

There are some nice touches that I really enjoy in this book. The index is divided by ingredient so you can look up all the soups that have mushrooms, saffron, shellfish or even Tabasco! Under the title is prep and cooking times and also a “category” such as Easy and Reasonable, or A Little Expensive but Easy (Creamy Black Sausage Soup With Lobster), or A Little Tricky but Reasonable. I have to say, probably at least 90% of the recipes are listed as “easy”, and that is really nice.

Overall, this is a great little book to have on hand to make a plethora of soups. Anyone can make great soups out of this delightful cookbook.

I received a copy of this book from Fitzhenry & Whiteside for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.