Cream of Mushroom Soup (with no cream)

I don't think that I've made a cream of mushroom before – which surprises me, given that I love mushrooms and creamy soups. I looked online at a variety of options and settled on this Skinny Taste recipe for a few reasons. First, it called for shiitakes, which are a favorite mushroom and I know pack a lot of earthy flavor. Secondly, the recipe didn't call for any cream – this means that it was low fat *and* relatively easy to make (some of the other options that I considered called for making a cashew cream or similar). Lastly, it centered the mushroom flavor – which is what I wanted. I certainly appreciate other flavors but in this instance I really did just want a mushroom soup that wasn't masked by heavy spices or other veggies. The resulting soup was excellent. I will make this again for sure, and consider doubling the recipe (portions were small, and considering how good it was I wanted more!). Note that I did use the optional butter (and just used regular unsalted butter since that's what I had on hand). I figured it needed *some* fat if I wasn't using cream of any sort. I also blended a bit more than the 1-cup that it called for and did so in my Vitamix so the resulting puree was super-smooth. I considered blending all if, but am glad that I kept some of the mushrooms in tact to break up the texture a bit. All in all this was an easy soup to make with a high return on the flavor factor!