I will put a little bit into a new ferment, just to seed it with good bacteria. If it's warm outside, I might dilute it with cold
water and drink it. Using it in soup is a great idea.
One thing I've been doing is adding some fermented veggies to my kid-friendly (non-mayonnaise) cole slaw instead of salt. So, I chop up a cabbage finely, put it in a colander and sprinkle it with sugar. The sugar pulls water from the cabbage, and I just let that go down the drain (a waste, but sugar is kind of evil anyway). When the cabbage is wilted, I mix it up with shredded carrots, some kind of vinegar and some kind of oil (I like rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil, or roasted peanut oil; or white wine vinegar and olive oil). Then I added some of my purple cabbage fermented with ginger. My original cole slaw recipe calls for sprinkling the cabbage with both salt and sugar.