Miso Soup

Joshua wanted to have Japanese food for his birthday, and I have always liked miso soup, therefor I had to look up a good recipe and try my hand at really making some.  I have previously played around with miso in soup.
I found this helpful site and went to work.  We have miso paste. We did not have the tofu I was hoping for, nor did we have dashi.  On the other hand, we did have a bag of cabbage and Mama had just gotten some miso with "dashi extract" (bonito flavorings).  So, this would have to work...I was hopeful.
Papa was going to the store and I asked if he could pick up mushrooms, or dry shitakis on the off-chance the local Kroger might have them.  The store had fresh shitakis so that is what we got.

I poured 12 cups of water into the heavy pot and set it to boil while I pulled out the cabbage.  The cabbage was that bag of coleslaw mix with mostly green cabbage, a little purple, and a little bit of carrot all thinly chopped.
I noticed a bag of chopped onion and dropped a handful into the heating water.  It came to a boil.  The heat was turned down to medium low. 
I dropped in three big handfuls of the cabbage mixture and waited around 15-20 minutes.  It was bright and lovely.
Next came the carton of shitakis, dumped in minus one or two that appeared not so good as the rest.
After a stir, I turned off the heat and began stirring the miso with dashi in, one big soup spoon at a time, approximately how the lady in the video does--she mixed the paste in the ladle before adding it to the rest of the pot.
I think I put in around six spoonfuls or so.  I tasted it it and added a little more.

It tasted good.  It is best fresh and hot or warm.  I ate some with an egg for breakfast the next day.  I did not like the mushrooms cold, but the broth and cabbage were still good cold.  I warmed it after tasting the cold mushroom and enjoyed the soup.