Everyone has some sort of comfort food and for me it’s borscht. I grew up in Kazakhstan, a country with some Russian influence, so it’s no wonder that I love this soup. Now, every recipe is a little different and there is no one recipe that I followed. Instead, I essentially took parts of several different recipes and made it my own. It is a labor intensive dish in the prep portion, but the rest is easy. Also, this dish can be vegetarian, just remove all meat products and use vegetable oil for cooking.

What you’ll need: 

• 4 medium sized beets
• 4 carrots
• 1 onion
• 1 russet potato
• 1 cabbage
• couple of pounds of beef
• 4 strips of bacon
• 8 cups of broth, either beef, chicken or vegetable
• 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 bay leaves
• 3/4 cup of dill
• sour cream to garnish

Directions: 

1. Clean and cut lengthwise beets, carrots and cabbage
2. Mince 1 onion
3. Clean and cut 1 potato in cubes
4. In a hot pot, brown the bacon and remove it. You will use the fat for cooking
5. Next, if you’re using beef, brown the beef. I removed mine and then put it back after I combined all the vegetables.
6. Sautee the onion for about a minute
7. Then add cubed potato, cook for another minute or 2
8. Add the rest of the vegetables.
9. Add red wine vinegar and the juice of lemon.
10. Add dill and bay leaves.
11. Cover all the vegetables and let cook for 20 minutes or so on high heat. Once they start to soften, stir the pot to make sure that everything is integrating. Cook for another 40 minutes at medium heat, checking up occasionally.
12. Serve with sour cream and dill as garnish. Voila!