Vegetarian Chicken Soup

As a Jewish mother, I supposedly have the panacea for colds, chicken soup. This legendary broth-y soup has been spooned in the mouths of generations of kids, with the urgent, “eat it, it’s good for you.”

I don’t make chicken soup, since my family is vegetarian, but for years I have made a rich vegetable soup, using vegetable stock to make a soup with carrots, parsnips, celery and onions.

But my youngest daughter doesn’t like broth-y soup.

Now, we take other measures to ensure winter health, getting flu shots, drinking Traditional Medicinals cold tea when we get the sniffles, and not going outside with a wet head (not sure what this one does, but my own Jewish mother instilled it in me).

Still, I wanted Nora to eat the restorative soup.

Here’s the thing – she loves soup, but only cream soup. One day, I took her bowl and buzzed it with the immersion blender. Voila – she ate the soup.

Then I thought about other soups and ways to get more vegetables into her. Nora hates cooked carrots, but if they are blended in soup, she willingly eats them. And I find ginger to be particularly soothing when I have a sore throat. Since Nora is a singer (and a screamer) she gets a lot of sore throats, cold or no.

Note: You can make this soup vegan by sautéeing the onion in olive oil.

Carrot-Ginger Soup

1 onion, roughly chopped
1 T butter
1 3 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
2 quarts vegetable stock (homemade is much better, but you can use Imagine)
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
3 parsnips, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 sweet potato, peeled and chunked
1 potato, peeled and chunked
slat and pepper, to taste
Tabasco sauce, to taste

Cook the onion in the butter on low heat till soft, about 10 minutes. Add the ginger, stock and all the veggies and turn the heat up high. Add salt and pepper.
When small bubbles appear, turn the heat down to medium, cover, and cook for about 45 minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft.

Remove the piece of ginger.

Blend the soup with an immersion blender (you can do this when the soup is hot) or wait till it cools and blend in a food processor until smooth.

Add the ginger back. Heat and taste; add salt, pepper and Tabasco sauce, if needed.

This soup gets even more ginger-y the next day. Just don’t serve anyone the huge chunk of ginger; it can turn them off ginger forever.

Have a bowl after you get your flu shot.

Cold and Flu

If I ever waver about getting the flu vaccine, I think back to when my oldest daughter was a sophomore in high school. It was early in the flu season, around October, and we had not yet gotten our shots. She got the flu and missed a week and a half of school. It was not a kid’s dream vacation, watching movies and reading trashy books. She was really, really sick and when she finally got better, she spent weeks playing catch up with her school work.

My youngest daughter just recovered from a nasty cold - three days of missed school - and we even visited the doctor to make sure she didn’t have some strain of flu that escaped the vaccine. No, just a cold, which she has now passed on to me.

According to Dr Tanya Remer Altmann,a pediatrician consultant for Puffs, the common cold is “the most frequent cause of school and work absenteeism.”

Dr. Altmann offers these tips for avoiding colds:

Practice Healthy Habits (get plenty of sleep, exercise and eat your veggies!)

Wash hands early and often with soap and warm water for 20 seconds.

Soothe cold symptoms by drinking fluids and running vaporizers/humidifiers at night.

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and put your used tissue in the trash.

Soften-And Strengthen-Your Blows by selecting a gentle but strong tissue like Puffs Plus with Lotion to help prevent chapping from frequent nose blowing.

I tried Puffs Plus with the Scent of Vicks. It brought me back to my days of have Vicks VapoRub smeared on my chest and gave me the illusion of feeling taken care of. Because no sooner had I sat down, than my young patient bleated about needing a hot drink.

So is the flu vaccine worth it? Nora still got sick, still missed school. But she was out less than half the time, and by the middle of that third day, she was fine. Had freezing rain not been falling, we might have sent her to school in the middle of the day.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend vaccination for everyone 6 months and older this season. For more information, click here

Vegetarian Tackles the Flu

As a Jewish mother, I know the curative powers of chicken soup, but as a vegetarian, I am unwilling to serve my kids fowl. So I take other measures during cold & flu season.

The first is the annual flu shot, recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for kids ages six months and up.

If on of my kids has a sore throat or cold, I have her gargle with salt water, which actually does ease symptoms.

Then there’s using a Neti pot to rinse out your sinuses. I always thought this was rather disgusting, but Water Pik has a new line of SinuSense products to make using a saltwater solution to rinse your sinuses simple. A squeeze bottle and a Neti bottle are both a bit easier to use than a traditional Neti pot, or you can go with the battery operated water pulsator.

Finally, I make spicy vegetarian soup, usually with lots of ginger and chili paste, at the first sign of sniffles. This blasts through your nasal passages and clears you out in no time.

Try this soup, from This Can’t be Tofu! by Deborah Madison

Coconut Red Curry Soup with Butternut Squash and Lime
1 small butternut squash

4 tsp peanut oil

1 cup minced onions

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 slices fresh ginger

Grated zest and juice of 1 large lime

¼ tsp turmeric

1 to 2 tsp Thai red chili paste

4 cups vegetable stock

Sea salt
¼ cup cilantro leaves

2 tbsp basil leaves, thinly sliced

1 can light coconut milk

1 10 oz carton soft tofu
1. Peel the squash with a vegetable peeler, halve and scoop out the seeds, then dice into ½ cubes.

2. Warm the oil in a wide soup pot. Add the onion, squash, garlic, galangal, lime zest and turmeric. Cook over medium high heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, then add the chili paste.

3. Add ½ cup water and scrape pot to dilute the paste, then add stock and ½ tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, dice the tofu into small cubes and prepare the cilantro and basil.

4. Add the coconut milk to the soup, followed by the tofu. Simmer until the soup is hot again and the tofu is warmed through, about 5 minutes. Taste for salt, adding more if necessary. Add the cilantro and basil, and squeeze in the juice from the lime.
Serves 4-6

I wrote this blog post while participating in a TwitterMoms blogging program for which I may receive a small thank you (valued at less than $20).
For more information on how you can participate, click here
CDC Flu InformationKnow what to do about the flu