You absolutely can substitute veggie stock. Glad you enjoyed the soup! :)

I also made this soup yesterday it was delicious and even better today :-)
Thank you again for the great lessons and recipes!

This is the best mushroom soup I've ever tasted. It's even better on Day Two!

What would be a good replacement to barley? My son is allergic to gluten. Also, is the sour cream essential or could I leave it out if we don't eat dairy?

You can add any grain you like. Try adding quinoa maybe? See the lesson on "How to Cook Grains" for more ideas. And yes, you can leave out the sour cream.

It is important to understand that recipes are merely guides. In almost every case you are free to make substitutions and tweaks. Cheers!

Mushrooms are my most favorite food group. This was amazing. I had THREE heaping bowls tonight with some crunchy French bread. Delicious! Looking forward to playing with the types of grain and mushrooms.

I made this mushroom soup last night and it turned out really tasty, even though I forgot the step to add the flour!!!

Question for the group -- My largest burner has twice the BTU output of heat as the smallest burner. How does burner size/BTU correlate with instructions to use different heat levels such as high or medium high or even low heat?

Good question. Instructions on heat are just like instructions on time it may take to cook something. They are only guidelines. This is why a lot of people struggle with following written recipes, because that is what they do, follow, without a proper understanding of what other measures they should look for - like a simmer, a certain crust on the food, a certain colour etc.

Cooking forces you to use your senses. How do you develop your cooking senses? Learning through Rouxbe is the 1st step. Typically, in the instructions we may say, over low heat, over medium heat, yet we also (usually) give you another measure to visually look for, so you can use these as guidelines. However, guidelines need to be complemented by your increasing knowledge of what needs to happen in the pan, pot or oven.

Ultimately, your understanding of cooking will overtake the guidelines. I know for me, the few times I have worked on electric stoves, none of my time/temperature guidelines worked with that source of heat. I had to trust my understanding of what I was actually looking for. Hope that helps.

Okay, thanks for the logical explanation. You're right about the instructional videos providing more clues to temperature requirements than just where to set the flame height. So I'll keep experimenting with different lesson recipes until I get it right. Like on the mushroom soup recipe I used to much heat because I set my know to high when cooking the mushrooms down. I also didn't quite have enough liquid for the Barley, it was slightly browned on the bottom at 30 minutes into cooking. and it was on my smallest burner at the lowest setting.

If you find that your smallest burner, set on the lowest heat, is still too hot, then you may want to consider buying a heat diffuser. Alternatively, there may be a way on your particular stove to adjust the heat. Cheers!

A heat diffuser did come with me stove top, I forgot all about it -- it's deep down in drawer somewhere. Thanks for the tip.

This soup looks amazing!

Can I substitute something else for the flour, to make it gluten-free?

Here is a recipe for a gluten-free flour that you can use in place of the regular flour. Cheers!

It was even better the second time I made it last night. I tested my skills by loosely following the recipe by taste and it was excellent. Easy and delicious. Thanks Rouxbe!!!

Thanks, Dawn!

Would using the gluten-free flour change the roux? Like, would it taste different? Would I need to keep a closer eye on it (because, say, it turns brown more quickly or something)?

The roux will taste slightly different—not bad, just different; however, it will cook in a similar fashion. Cheers!