I’m a funji (Get it? Fun guy?)

(Yes, that’s the punchline to a very dumb joke that a 4-year-old probably told you at some point. But you know, deep inside, you snickered. It’s a pun. It’s funny. It’s. . . punny. Yes, roll your eyes.)

But that bad joke is also a reference to one of the first cooking posts I’m going to post here on “Unfinished Business.” And it’s for a beautiful, earthy, mushroom soup the Pioneer Woman posted over at the Tasty Kitchen blog. If you hate mushrooms, obviously, this isn’t the soup for you. But if you love them like I do, you must try this soup. It’s rich, yummy, and beautiful.

Get the recipe here. Here’s my take on making this relatively easy soup.

• The recipe calls for minced carrots and celery cooked until softened in the stock pot. I added minced onion, because what is mushrooms without onions? Maybe it’s wrong, but I liked it and think they added to the soup. I cooked the veggies in a few tablespoons of oil until softened, then added the garlic (1 tbsp!) as instructed.

• The recipe instructed me to chop my own white mushrooms, but being lazy, I used the pre-sliced ones you can buy at the store and chopped them a little more finely. Why make more work for myself? I added these to the veggies already in the pot and let them soften and reduce as the recipe directed.

• The recipe calls for Chablis. The Pioneer Woman used Chardonnay. I don’t drink, so neither of those were really an option. I used white cooking wine, which I understand is sub-par to “real” cooks. And it is full of salt. But I used it anyway and didn’t add as much salt to the soup in the end. I allowed the mushrooms and veggies to hang out in the cooking wine for a bit, then added the tomato juice and chicken stock. The recipe says to let this boil for a bit. During this bit of down time, you may want to unload your dishwasher, start some laundry, sing along to a Shawn Mullins’ song (b/c it’s kind of like Nashville, with a tan), or open the blinds in the living room so you don’t look like the hermit on the street. Or, you know, whatever it is you want to do.

• This soup calls for a pint of heavy cream. Yes, I said a pint. But I didn’t know that until I was in the middle of making the soup. I just stared. And thought that now, that I’m at a weight I’m fairly happy with and feel that I look somewhat healthy at, I was going to do myself in with a pint of heavy cream. But I was too far into this soup to go back. There’s probably a way to make it a little more figure-friendly, but I’ll have to try that next time. This time, I went all out and savored every tasty bit of the cream.

• The recipe says to grate your own Parmesan cheese and add it to the soup. I am lazy, so I used some shredded Parmesan I had in the fridge. It worked fine, even though freshly grated would probably be better. But do whatever makes you happy. Or flips your skirt up. Or whatever slightly cliché phrase you want to use.

• Let the cheese melt, then reduce the heat and allow the soup to simmer and thicken for about 10 minutes. The recipe says to add cornstarch and water at this point to further thicken the soup, but I didn’t want to, so I didn’t. As a result, my soup probably wasn’t as thick as it could be, but I didn’t really care. It was delightful any way!

• Serve with a nice crusty bread topped with cheese and a refreshing beverage. I chose sourdough bread topped with shredded Italian cheeses and put it under the broiler until it was delightfully brown and bubbly. My beverage of choice was Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry in a stemmed glass. Because I am classy!

Time: About an hour

Difficulty level: easy

Soundtrack: Lightning 100, my favorite local radio station. Favorites played included the Avett Brothers’ “I and Love and You” and the aforementioned Shawn Mullins’ “Lullaby”