‘Tis the season…to get a cold.

Just when I thought I was out of the woods, I got knocked down with a stuffy head, sore throat, and a really attractive cough.  Fortunately this cold sinus infection hit before Thanksgiving, so I’m hoping to be over the worst of it by then.

Whenever I’m sick, I immediately crave warm comfort foods such as soup.  When I lived in LA, I used to get the Chicken Matzo Ball soup from Canter’s Deli, and was convinced that their soup had magic healing properties.

Since I wasn’t in the mood to make the hour drive up to LA just for soup, I decided to flip through my trusty True Food Kitchen cookbook for soup inspiration.  And low and behold, there was an immunity soup.

We didn’t have all the ingredients on hand to make the soup (if anyone can tell me where to find astragalus root that would be awesome), but the soup came out delicious and had a nice strong ginger flavor to it.  Perfect for soothing the throat and clearing the sinuses.

Once again, another awesome recipe from this cookbook.

Immunity Soup (adapted from the True Food Kitchen cookbook)

Ingredients:

1.5 tsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 large onions, sliced

3 garlic cloves

1 tbsp ginger

4 oz shiitake mushrooms (stemmed and sliced)

2 large carrots thinly sliced on the bias

10 cups vegetable broth (the recipe calls for homemade mushroom stock, but the broth worked fine)

Pinch of salt

2 cups broccoli florets

1/2 cup chopped scallions

1 cup brown rice noodles.

Directions:

1. In a large soup pot heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add your onions, garlic and ginger and saute until soft.  Add the shiitake mushrooms, carrots and vegetable broth and bring to a low boil.  Reduce your heat and let simmer for 40-45 minutes.

2. In a separate pot, boil your brown rice noodles and drain.

3. Add salt and broccoli florets and cook until the broccoli is tender (roughly 2 minutes).  Add in the brown rice noodles.

4. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with scallions.

This recipe will make about 6 servings worth of soup, so plenty of leftovers!  I especially liked adding the noodles into the soup for additional texture.

Oh, and meet the newest addition to our household:

Our spunky grey and white kitten named Pip!  We adopted him from a kitten rescue group and are totally smitten.