Self Medication

I don't like doctors. It's nothing I can exactly put my finger on, but I just don't like going to see one. For anything. When I get sick, which luckily isn't very often, I shuffle my sniffly self to the drug store and stare at the medicine aisle until I find something that seems to cover all my symptoms, I toss in some vitamins, make lots of tea and hope for the best. Oh yeah, I also make what my mom calls "Jewish Tylenol", also known as chicken soup. Now normally, the "make" part of that last sentence involves heating up a can of soup, because who has the energy to cook when they're truly sick? Usually not me. But yesterday I felt too sick to leave the house, so I had to figure something out on my own. Especially since all I had for lunch was a few clementines and an avocado, and soup was all that was on my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love avocado. I don't even need anything on it other then salt and pepper, see?



But that just doesn't cut it when you're sick and you want something hot and comforting. It just so happens that I had a freezer full of chicken soup makin's, and what I didn't have I could figure out a substitution for. I'm not writing this out in a recipe format because I was basically tossing stuff into the pot and hoping for the best. Pre-chopped and frozen celery, carrots, and onions I had left over from a cooking frenzy a while ago, along with two chicken quarters and I had everything I needed. I defrosted the chicken and then browned it on both sides in a large pot with a bit of olive oil. Then I filled the pot with 3/4 full of water, tossed in a tablespoon of minced garlic (it's good for you, right?), about a cup of each veggie, about a teaspoon of salt and some pepper...and then realized that there was too much stuff in the pot and it will boil over. Damn. Okay, I can fix this. I poured off about two cups of the liquid into a bowl and cranked the heat on high. Once the pot started to boil, I lowered the heat to a simmer and left the kitchen. About an hour later I remembered that there was soup on the stove and ran back. A lot of the liquid had cooked off, and the chicken was done, but otherwise everything looked good. I pulled the chicken out and poured back in the liquid I poured off earlier, adjusted the seasoning and let the soup simmer for another half hour, while I de-boned and shredded the chicken.

Chicken soup needs noodles though, right? But looking through the cupboard all I could find were udon noodles and lasagna...hmm. If you just break up the lasagna sheets, that's almost like soup noodles, right? It'll do. I tossed that into the soup and cooked it for another 20 min to make sure the thicker than normal pasta noodles cooked all the way through. I dumped the chicken back in and poured myself a bowl.



Not too bad for my first stab at chicken soup. A little slap-shod in the making, but what do you want? I was sick.

As for the curative properties, it may have been the meds or it may have been the many naps, but I'd like to think it was the soup that cured me in the end.