Dairy Free Cream of Mushroom Soup

I found some safe cashews to eat!  So excited, because now I get to mess around with a lot of the vegan and raw recipes using cashew cream!

Using this recipe from vegansparkles.com, I made our version of their cream of mushroom soup that uses cashew cream for the creaminess.  

Dairy-free Cream of Mushroom Soup

This? This is amazing. It was so good. It made me react some, of course, because it has mushrooms which are higher in histamines, but I was having a low reactive day and it was SO GOOD. So...I suffered for my food. Can't do it again for the whole week without a more serious reaction, but I only regret it a little.

Cream of Mushroom Soup, dairy free

Ingredients

1 pound mushrooms (we used white button), sliced

1 Tbsp oil (we used olive oil)

4 cups broth (veggie broth was suggested. We used poultry...I think chicken, maybe turkey. It was in my freezer. That's all I know!)

1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme and rosemary, each (I forgot the thyme and rosemary, actually) 

1 1/2 cups cashew cream (we made ours from scratch using this recipe from online)

about 1 tsp true onion seeds, crushed a bit (NOT nigella, which is sometimes called onion seed. I plant my green onions and harvest the seeds later. The original recipe calls for 1/2 of an onion, but we can't have that, so this is a substitute. Original uses garlic, too.)

Directions

1. In a pot, sauté the onion seeds for a minute in the oil, then add the mushrooms and any fragrant herbs/seasonings you may be adding, like ginger, turmeric, celery, whatever you may add. Sauté these for 3-5 minutes more.

2. Reduce heat to med/med-low and add the broth. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes, covered. 

3. Add the cashew cream and herbs to the pot, blend well with a whisk, simmer for another 20-30 minutes, stirring periodically. 

4. Turn off heat and season with salt/pepper to taste, and serve!

Notes:

1. This turned out SO well. It was really creamy and lovely, and I honestly would not have known it was dairy free. My cashew cream was thick, and not as smooth as some, and I never even noticed. I have read now that the cashews, because of their fat content, will thicken somewhat like dairy when heated, and this seemed to be the case. The 20-30 minutes simmering time really made a noticeable change in the texture of the soup.

2. I was tempted to cook this for less time in the beginning ,with just the mushrooms and the broth, but the extra time brought out the flavor of the mushroom a lot, I believe. I'd recommend not skimping on the longer cooking time unless you are adding a lot more in the way of other flavors, to make up for it. And even then, you'll be missing out.

EDIT 2/3/14
- Had no broth, so made this and added 1 pound raw ground bison and 3 cups water instead of broth, and let the meat cook and make a beefy broth. It needed extra salt, and I added a few extra herbs, but still turned out well, still good to eat. Meat falls apart a bit, so that affects the texture. And I let it cook without the lid a little, so the broth condensed some and was more stew like than soup. Still reacted, too, darn it.

Re: low histamine diet - this is SO NOT compliant. It cooks for a long time, which is going to raise the histamine levels, and it uses mushrooms, which are on the high histamine side of things on the lists I've looked at.