Mushroom soup

This is a really easy recipe, and you can make it vegan if you want.

1 chopped onion
4 tablespoons butter (or you can substitute a little less olive oil)
Fresh mushrooms (I used three large portobello mushrooms caps; an equivalent amount of any other kind of mushroom, including button mushrooms, will work just fine)
1/2 cup or so dried mushrooms, reconstituted (again, any kind)
Broth (chicken or veggie is fine)

And that's it. Saute the onion in the butter until soft. Add the fresh mushrooms and cook down for 5-10 minutes. Add the dried mushrooms, with juice, and add enough broth to float the whole thing. Let simmer for an hour. Puree in your food processor, add salt and pepper, and serve with fresh bread.

Despite the hour of simmering time, this is a great thing to make on weekdays. A minimum number of ingredients and steps, and the flavor is really deep for something with only five ingredients. If you want to get fancy, you can throw in a dollop of sherry at the end (Anthony Bourdain has a similar mushroom soup recipe that uses sherry).