Ultimate immunity booster Sauerkraut Soup

Instructions

Soup

1. Prep: Dice onion, celery, and carrot into small pieces. Slice mushrooms. Dice potato into 1/2 inch pieces. Mince garlic cloves.
2. In a pot, on a medium-high flame, add butter. Once hot, add bay leaf, onion, celery, and carrots and sauté for 5 minutes. We are making mirepoix, to create the base flavor of the soup.
3. Add garlic and salt and cook till onion is translucent. Make sure, not to charr or crisp the onions.
4. Add potato and spices(thyme, smoked paprika, and pepper) and cook for 7-10 minutes.
5. In a separate pan, sauté sliced mushroom on medium flame till the water is cooked out of them.
6. Add nut milk and bring the mix comes to a boil.
7. Then add the sauerkraut and vegetable broth, wait till the mix comes to a boil. Then simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Add cooked mushroom and uncooked pasta and let simmer for 10 minutes or until pasta is tender.
9. Serve in a bowl and garnish with a couple of tablespoons of raw sauerkraut on top for the extra crunch and a healthy dose of probiotics.

Homemade Sauerkraut (bonus)

1. Cut thin slices of the green cabbage and put them in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add salt evenly and mix the cabbage well so all of the cabbage gets coated with salt.
3. Hand crush the cabbage for 5-10 mins as if you are kneading dough. Make sure you are crushing and not tearing the cabbage. The goal is to rupture the cell membranes of the cabbage so it becomes tender
4. Let the mix rest for an hour, add the minced garlic, mustard and caraway(or fennel) seeds, and then repeat the crushing process again for 5 minutes.
5. Repeat this once more with rest time in between. So in the end you would have crushed or kneaded it 3 times.
6. By this point, your cabbage would be roughly half the volume you started with. Cabbage will release a lot of its water, make sure you are saving this liquid as this will be used as the pickling liquid for sauerkraut.
7. Transfer the cabbage in a glass vessel, large enough to hold all the cabbage and the liquid.
8. Make sure all the cabbage is submerged in the pickling liquid. If for some reason, the liquid seems low, make a saltwater solution(1 cup water and 1 tsp salt) and top up the mixture with it.
9. Cover the jar with a cheesecloth and let it sit in a warm place.
10. You will be able to get the sauerkraut flavor in 3 days of fermenting but it will take approximately 2.5 weeks to be ready.
11. Keep turning the cabbage every 2 days or so.
12. That's how easy it is. Let the bacteria do all the good work. Just two ingredients and you have yourself a flavorful, sour, and healthy condiment that will also store well for months.