So, in my department teaching assistants have to go to the lecture for their module. This is partly so the students get to know who we are, and partly so we know exactly what was said in each lecture. Enter freshers' flu. Half the first years coughed their way through the lecture yesterday. So by the afternoon, be it real or psychological, I felt a cold coming on. My strategy for colds is pretty much always to go home and eat spicy food to chase them away.
A few individual ingredients that are useful here:
-Garlic. Raw if you can take it.
-Ginger. Raw or minced in vinegar is better than powder.
-Horseradish or wasabi (different nationalities of the same plant)
-Chilli, of any sort. Hot peppers will unblock your nose and probably a few other parts of your anatomy. (None of which you should wipe straight after cutting up the peppers - wash your hands or get a nasty shock...)
-Any normal curry ingredients. The hotter the better. On this occasion, it is a good thing if your eyes and nose run!
Last night's dinner ended up being miso soup with pasta and a whole load of heat-producing ingredients. I don't have a cold this morning, so either it did the trick or the whole thing was a psychosomatic reaction to being cooped up with sneezy freshers for an hour!
Recipe:
-A tablespoon miso buillion (Marigold, for those reading in the UK)
-Two mugs of water (didn't measure it this time, but I do know how much my smallest pan holds)
-About half a coffee mug of pasta
-1 teaspoon each of horseradish relish and minced ginger
-Half a teaspoon of wasabi powder
-A splash each of soy sauce and rice vinegar (I am putting this in everything right now because I only just bought the bottle)
Boil for about five minutes to give the pasta a head start on cooking. Then add veg. Last night I used:
-Two spring onions
-Two mushrooms, chopped v. small
-Two cloves of garlic. These should be as raw as you can stand, so put them in fairly near the end.
I have put broccoli and carrot in this in the past, but didn't have any broccoli and had been eating carrots in absolutely everything lately so wanted a change.
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3 comments:
does the spicy thing work, does it keep the cold shorter or away for you?
I always try to drink lots of water, take my vitamins and eat fresh fruit for extra C. It's kinda hit or miss though.
It works if I can start with it as soon as I start feeling blocked up or otherwise like I have the beginnings of a cold. (which is fairly often at this time of year, due to new students bringing local variants of different viruses into crowded classrooms) I also combine it with extra sleep, vitamin C tablets and occasionally rinsing my sinuses with salt water. (Sorry if that last bit was sort of tmi!)
spicy food is good for making me blow my nose, plut it tastes good.
as soon as I think i'm getting sick, I start in on the Emergen-C, a vitamin B, C, etc mix. Not all kinds are vegan, for example pink lemonade. I like super orange. One year I had it every day in the winter and didn't get sick once. That was awesome. I think I'll do that again this year because last year's cold was hell. once it got started, even Emergen-c couldn't slow it down.
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