Soups on

The Best Damm Cabbage Soup

I don’t know if it was because all I had was end of the month vegetables wilted in my refrigerator or because it was cool outside and the leaves were falling and I wanted smells coming out of the kitchen, but yesterday, I made, without a doubt, the best damn cabbage soup in the world.

So I started with some left over from breakfast bacon grease, enough to cover a soup pot bottom. I threw in some chopped up bacon, a bout a half of a large yellow onion minced, one garlic clove (also minced), two wilted carrots trimmed, peeled, and diced into very small pieces, a small piece of very wilted but not molded bell pepper, and one large stick of celery chopped, Then, I let them cook in that hot bacon grease for a few minutes, then I washed the hell out of a big cabbage that I bought at the market and forgot that I had,, and peeled off all the big leafy pieces that looked bad and then I chopped it into long strips and put in the hot pan on top of the other vegetables and bacon and bacon grease. Immediately thereafter, I poured enough water over the cabbage to just cover it and let it get hot. When it started boiling, I added about a half of cup of apple cider vinegar, some fresh ginger that I grated over the pot—probably two tablespoons of that—I keep my ginger in the freezer so I always have fresh, then I added about a fourth to a half cup of brown sugar and let it cook down. When the stuff was well tender and smelling like heaven, I added a couple of meat finds that I had cooked the day or two before like one half of a small steak, I cut into strips, and a hamburger patty that I had made hamburger steaks out of and it was nice and easy to crumble. After the meat had a chance to get all good in the cabbage soup juice and all hot, I salted and peppered it all one more time and served it over nothing cause it was so fucking awesome by itself.