Winter Warmers

Frost whiskers on bracken

We've had frosts and hail and sleet!  

The goose-feather doona and my woolies and thermals are out.

The fire is lit and making the place all lovely and cosy!

Broken glass?  No, indeed! Ice from a puddle!

It's winter and I love it!  It's soup season.

One of our favourites is chicken noodle soup so I thought I'd share the recipe for the Chez Archer Chicken Noodle Soup.

Stock:

• I make my own because the shop-bought ones often have corn or maize hidden in the ingredients as "dehydrated/hydrolysed vegetable protein"

• about 2 kg of chicken with bones because stock made with bones has all the great immune boosting goodness. - drumsticks are good.
• garlic - at least 3 cloves - crushed
• ginger - a good 2" grated
  .
• Simmer until the chicken is cooked.
• Drain through a sieve.
• de-bone (bones to the freezer for a batch of bone broth later)
• cooked chicken (can use some in the soup and the rest for a meal)
• cool the stock overnight in the fridge and discard the fat off the surface.

 The Soup:

Vegetables ready to add

• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 1 medium to large carrot - grated
• 1 stalk of celery - thinly sliced
• a handful of snow peas - chopped
• half a red capsicum - chopped
• more garlic - crushed clove (because that's good for winter ills too!)
• and noodles (I use Wokka Shelf Fresh Singapore Style noodles)
• salt and pepper to taste
  .
• saute garlic in a little oil
• add stock
• add prepared vegetables and noodles 
• heat through until the vegetables are lightly cooked - we like them to be slightly crunchy still rather than cooked to limpness.

Serve with toast soldiers!  We had it last night with toast soldiers made for leftover homemade pumpkin bread!  

Between the bread and the soup we got our recommended five daily servings of vegetables!

Are you a soup fan?  What's your favourite?
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Sickness, Soup and Sensitivity: give me a heroic bedside manner!

I'm coming to you from the House of Lurgy today - the dreaded red, sore croaky throat bug has invaded. The husband and eldest are first afflicted and I suspect more are soon to fall...

Sore throats suck I think - sure they're not the worst illness in the world by any stretch! But they're very painful and while they're around they affect every action - hurt when you breathe, swallow and above all, try to eat - something very important to me!!!!

Soup - by Simon Howden.
www.freedigitalphotos.net

So my nine year old is spending her second day home from school, curled up on the sofa under a rug, reading her favorite books in front of the fire. It's Autumn/Fall here and rain has settled in to keep us company today. I'm plying her with an odd combination of broccoli soup and lemonade. Guess which of the two she prefers!!! Really, it's not so bad - especially when she has Doting Mum on hand to provide for her every wish... (poor hubby is on a business trip away and suffering in stoic silent solitude).

Sickness often crops up in category romance - where either hero or heroine is laid low for a few days and we get to see how the other character copes and cares for her/him. It can show a lot about the relationship, especially in the earlier stages where perhaps any idea of 'relationship' between the two is being fiercely resisted!!!

I confess I rather love the idea of having a big strong hero swooping in to take care of me when I'm feeling poorly. How nice would it be to cuddle in to a broad, warm chest and be held close... But then pride rears up and I think - eeeeeuuuu--would I really want the guy I'd quite like to impress see me all sweaty and feverish?! Or worse, throwing up!

It's a plot point I've used myself. In REBEL WITH A CAUSE, very early in the story Sophy comes across Lorenzo who's mortified to be laid low with tonsillitis and a flu bug and no way does he want Sophy hanging round and 'helping'. So Sophy doesn't. She knows this guy isn't going to take that from her so she goes a step further and hires a nurse to care for him in that first twenty-four hours when the fever was at it's peak. He hates her for it, but he'd have hated it more in that part of their relationship for him to see him so weak - allowing himself to be vulnerable around her isn't something that he can do until much later.

I remember reading an old Lucy Walker as a teen (Lucy Walker wrote the most fabulous romances set in the Australian outback - I read them a billion times) - and I clearly remember one in which the heroine gets a snake bite and spends the night in a terrible fever. It was at a very bad patch in the relationship between her and the hero (she thinks he hates her and resents her being there) - but when she wakes she sees his stretcher has been pulled right close to hers, she remembers someone putting a cool facecloth on her forehead and giving her sips of water through the night... And we see the hero later looking very tired from that worry and lack of sleep... lovely stuff!!!!

So how do you feel about the hero or heroine getting ill within a romance?! Do you like seeing how the other literally cares for her/him?! Do you like that fantasy of having a gorgeous hero to wipe your brow or does it make you shudder in humiliation?!

And most importantly (from my daughter who's 'sick' of broccoli soup) what food and or drink do you think is the best medicine for a sore throat!!!