Soup and Sandwiches - Kraut Style

I've been committed to eating better - at least most of the time - since my health problems have been keeping me down. My number one priority lately has been to get back to making my meals from scratch, with a focus on raw foods. My plan is to get back into 50% raw right away, with a goal of getting back to 80% raw. One way to do that is to find ways to mix raw foods in with cooked foods, in increasing amounts.

Several days ago, I looked in the fridge and decided to do something with that big head of cabbage, so I lugged out the food processor and started chopping it fine for cole slaw, when all of a sudden I thought, "I haven't made homemade sauerkraut for a really long time." So I doused the chopped-up cabbage with sea salt and started pounding it to release the juices. Then I covered it with plastic wrap and put a big, heavy bowl on top to weigh it down. And there it sat for several days, until it got that ripe tang to it. A big, ol' bowl of very finely chopped sauerkraut. Not as pretty as the thinly sliced. 

Then, with my bag of fresh sauerkraut in the fridge, I started wondering what to do with it. I ate some of it all by itself. I like homemade kraut enough to to that. Over the next few days, I made sandwiches, featuring sauerkraut. One, a simple grilled white cheddar cheese on Ezekiel bread tasted like a Reuben sandwich, without the corned beef. Not bad. And then I got an online idea to add some kraut to a tuna sandwich, also on Ezekiel bread, which, to my surprise, turned out to be very yummy. 

But the best was this sauerkraut soup, which I made with a homemade potato soup base, added some cooked bacon and, at the end, a generous amount of fresh sauerkraut. I added it after, because I didn't want to cook it in. I wanted to keep it fresh. Since I like to eat most of my food pretty close to room temperature, it wasn't a problem for me. 

The soup was delish! I mean, really delish!