Improving "garbage soup"

I hate the name of this dish, but that's what I've heard it called. I learned it, originally, from a recipe by Marion Cunningham. Now, I will say up front, that I have heard positives, and negatives about Ms. Cunningham. Some VERY positive, and some VERY negative. I will not repeat any of them here; if you're curious, you can probably find them on the internet. What I will say is that, by and large, I find her recipes interesting, straight forward, and almost inevitably too sweet. For example, there is a recipe for stuffed cabbage, that I make, that is based originally on her recipe, except I leave out the quarter cup of brown sugar the recipe called for originally. I cannot imagine stuffed cabbage with brown sugar in it. EWWWW. BUT... and I say this with all due respect to my readers - I have found that as you move in from the coasts, both East and West, and as you go down the coast on the East, people prefer their dishes sweeter. I have had tomato sauce in Pennsylania Dutch country that was sweeter than ketchup.
Oh, dear. I'm digressing. Moreso than usual. Back to "garbage soup."
Ms Cunningham described this as "the soup you make when there's nothing in the house to make soup with." Indeed, she's right": it calls for potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery, which are in just about every home at every time, and if all of them aren't there, you can substitute.
Well, I have made the soup and I will say that it is pretty darn good. But I made it BETTER. Yes I did, by using one of the other staples of your kitchen. You ought to have some dried mushrooms in your cupboard at all times. They are very expensive, but they are solid gold for cooking. I have seen all kinds of formulas for how many pounds of fresh mushrooms a pound of dried mushrooms equates to, and the numbers are always different. It matters not. Use them. They're good.

OK, here's the soup. Take an ounce of dried mushrooms, any type (I prefer cepes). Put them in a bowl, and cover them with two cups of boiling water. Then put them aside, and let them cool in the water.

While that's happening, chop up equal amounts of carrots, potatoes, and celery. At least a cup, maybe a cup and a half of each. Chop up half as many onions. Then, when the mushrooms are cool, drain them and chop them, AND DON'T YOU DARE TOSS THAT LIQUID.

Put some oil, olive oil if you have it, into a pot, and when it's hot, add the veggies - all of them - and saute'. Add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and then stir them until the vegetables just begin to sweat. It won't take long. Maybe 7 minutes?

After that, add six cups or so of water, or chicken stock, and the mushroom soaking liquid. Lower the heat to medium, and cook just until the vegetables are just aldente, and you have soup.

Now, you can play with this. My friend Dan, from Sweden, loves rutubagas (hooray for him). You can substitute one vegetable for these "swedes" or to add the rutubagas. Maybe you want to add cabbage, or something else that you have around the house? If you have a parmesan cheese rind, perhaps you can cook that with the soup to add some flavor.

In very many respects, this reminds me of minestrone, but without the beans. It's also really good, and very comforting on a cold night.

"Garbage soup" indeed. Sure sounds good to me.