The air smells like fall!

This morning, when i walked out of our house (actually its a castle, but i will write about that another day), the sun was shining softly on my face, the wind was blowing a little cool and it smelt, the first time this year, like fall.

to be honest, i love this time of the year. the heat of the summer is past and the cold of the winter is still far away. the colors of the nature are getting more powerful and something new is in the atmosphere. well.

the taste of fall is also one of my favorite. apples, pears, mushrooms, pumpkins. i love that.

so i tried a recipe of a mushroom soup out of a beautiful cookbook written by jamie oliver. and really, it was a revelation. i really never made a mushroom soup before, even though mushrooms are one of my favorites.

 by the way, mushrooms are no vegetable. they are a own kind of plants. and the biggest alive thing on earth is- a mushroom. jaahaa. that is true. its almost the size of a tenth of germany. it grows underneath the earth somewhere in south america.  

back to the soup. take 50 grams of dried porcini mushrooms (steinpilze). put them in a bowl and pour boiling water on it until covered. let it sit for 20 minutes. then take the mushrooms out of the water and cut half if them into small peaces. keep the water.

cut 600 grams of different fresh mushrooms in peaces. cut one onion and two garlic cloves   

into small peaces and sauté it in some hot butter for about five minutes. then put the porcini mushrooms and the mushroom water in the pot. pepper (freshly grounded) and salt it. let boil for twenty minutes, until the liquid is gone. then put the fresh mushrooms and one liter (about 4 cups) of vegetable broth in the pot. let boil for another 20 minutes.

you can blend half of the soup, that gives a creamier taste. stir in 2 tablespoons of cream cheese, best is the italian kind mascarpone. pepper and salt it if needed.

serve it with some fresh squeezed lemon juice. put some of it on the soup and stir in lightly. - tastes like heaven, believe me!

one of the most liked desserts of my family is zwetschgenkompott. in german it has a very old and boring sound. its basically plums boiled in a nice sweet vanilla and orange sirup.

so take about three quarters of a cup with sugar and heat it up in one cup of water. put one vanilla pod in the sweet, sweet water, after you scratched out the inside. also put one or two sternanis ( that is a winterspice, the google translater gave me the german word as translation. i thought it might be like the iceberg or the kindergarten a german word in english. let me know if there is any correct translation to it, please) and some zests of a organic orange peel in the water. let boil for five to ten minutes. then fill the plums in the pot and close it with a lid. turn off the heat after maybe two minutes. let it sit for ten minutes. don't cook too well. we still want to know, what we are eating.

serve it warm with whipped, not sweetened, cream. delicious! you can of course use all kinds of fresh and tasty fruits. 

this recipes really starts the end of the summer. what a time of the year! its bitter sweet.

I'm looking forward meeting you next week.

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have a blessed week.

yours ute