Wednesday's Recipes: Still Congested And Miserable

Happy Wednesday everyone! Once again, I have the unfortunate job of breaking bad news. As much as I know it crushes all of our regular readers, we are canceling all of the recipes for this week. Maggie is still a miserable, mucus-y mess and is in no shape to be cooking anything. The poor girl is even staying home from work today just to get some rest. I'm doing my best to keep her comfortable...while fighting with everything I have to avoid getting this plague.

If it's a vitamin or preventative cold medication, I've taken it. Zicam (which really is a miracle drug FYI, it seems any time I feel a cold coming on, I take one or two of those and POOF no more cold) echinacea and vitamin C have all been my good friends during this past week. As well as a lot of soap, a big can of Lysol and hand sanitizer. (Sure, the Mayo clinic disputes the effects of Zinc and echinacea in fighting a cold, but they do admit that they work to help prevent a cold - or help lesson a cold when taken in the first 24 hours - I'm going for the fighting aspect of these drugs).

Needless to say, this week's menu is full of chicken soup and rest. (Chicken soup, by the way, is actually proven to help in fighting a cold. Rather than attempting to go all 'medical' in a cooking blog, I will simply quote the doctors at the Mayo clinic directly here:

"First, it acts as an anti-inflammatory by inhibiting the movement of neutrophils — immune system cells that participate in the body's inflammatory response. Second, it temporarily speeds up the movement of mucus, possibly helping relieve congestion and limiting the amount of time viruses are in contact with the nose lining"

That's all for one can of soup! Amazing isn't it?

As it stands now, I can tell that the earliest Maggie will be feeling even slightly better is Friday. So, I've decided that it would be in her best interest to ingest nothing but chicken soup and get a lot of rest for the rest of the week. That means I'm making the executive decision to 'pull the plug' on this week's recipes. Everything we have scheduled for this week will simply be bumped back to next week, when (God willing) we will better.

Sorry to disappoint, dear readers, but with Maggie running on about 20% and with me running low on energy and sleep due to my efforts to fight the germs and take care of her - we are simply not up to par to be able to provide wonderful, entertaining recipes this week. We will do our best to get back to 100% by Monday of next week and then we'll take a second crack at cooking fresh and healthy once again. Until then, stay healthy (and if sick, get better)

~Cheers