Creamy Mushroom Soup without the cream

My favorite mushroom soup recipe comes from Julia Child. There's only one problem with it - too many calories. Here’s a modified version of Julia’s creamy mushroom soup, this time without the cream but loaded with flavor.  For this soup, and all great, creamy soups, you need a hand blender so if you don’t have one, buy one, preferably with a strong motor. Here is a picture of mine.

Ingredients

4 Tbs olive oil

1 cup of minced onions or shallots

¼ cup of ground almonds

8 cups of chicken stock

Mushrooms – at least 2 quarts – sliced. The plain white button variety are fine

¼ tsp dried or fresh tarragon

1)   Set the pan over moderate heat, add the olive oil and stir in the onions/shallots. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly for about 8 minutes.

2)   Stir in the ground almonds. Stir slowly for 3 minutes to cook the almonds but don’t let them brown

3)   Pour in one cup of the chicken stock (heated up) and whisk to blend. Slowly pour in the rest and simmer for 15 minutes

4)   Put all the mushrooms sliced in to the pan saving a small handful of the sliced mushroom for later and a pinch of tarragon

5)   Simmer for 20 minutes stirring frequently

6)   Blend using a hand blender (shown above)

7)   Simmer back in the pot for 5 more minutes, season with lots of pepper and garnish with the sliced mushrooms and tarragon you held back