Sauerkraut Soup

Wow, this lunch looks really frugal. It was nice, though.
The main dish is the sauerkraut soup that my family eats every year for Christmas Eve. It's not a regional or national tradition, just a family thing. The soup isn't the easiest thing to digest, but if you like sauerkraut and have the stomach for it, I highly recommend you try this delicious recipe:

Sauerkraut Soup for 2-3 people
60 g onions
200 g sauerkraut
150 ml tomato juice
750 ml vegetable stock
a bit of oil
salt and pepper
sugar
paprika powder
cayenne pepper
marjoram
thyme
parsley

Squeeze the sauerkraut to get as many of the liquid out of it as possible. Finely chop the sauerkraut and the onion. Fry it all with oil in a pan until everything is getting brown. You have to stir regularly and to have some patience - this needs time. Then put the kraut and onions in a stock pot together with the tomato juice and the vegetable stock. Add salt, pepper, sugar and the dried herbs. I can't give you any exact quantities, add a pinch of everything to taste, just go easy on the spicy cayenne! Bring to a boil and then gently simmer for about 20 minutes. The soup is ready when it has turned brown.

I brought along some homemade vegan buns with black cumin seeds, and an apple for second breakfast.
By now you have probably noticed that I'm not a big fruit person. I don't really like the sourly taste of many fruits, I find them messy to eat and perceive them as kind of cold. Which is strange, because I adore raw vegetables, which mainly have a similar texture (and actual temperature). So I have to trick myself into eating fruit by little details like this "apple puzzle". The apple is cut up carefully and then hold together by an elastic band. It still gets a bit brown inside, which you can avoid if you brush the pieces with lemon or orange juice, if it bothers you.