Getting summer colds is the pits. Just when you think you’re out of the woods you get smacked in the head with congestion, headaches, a sore throat, and low energy. As everyone knows, you can’t cure a cold. The strategy should always be to lessen the symptoms and the duration of the cold as much as possible. So when I woke up at 4am three nights ago with all the symptoms of a cold coming on suddenly, I immediately took a bunch of nasty-huge multi vitamins meant to boost the immune system (the ones I use are “Wellvitamins” and I only use them when coming down with something because they’re very expensive) and I drink lots of elderberry syrup, water, and sometimes I make up some ginger and honey tea or sage and honey tea.
That’s all well and good, but if you feed yourself crap while doing all the other good things you should be doing, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot. First thing you should do when you feel like you’re coming down with any kind of cold or flu is make soup. I believe that all soups have healing powers, even the cheesy ones, but if you’re getting sick I’d like to recommend making a vegetable soup full of vitamin C, garlic, and cayenne pepper. Like this cabbage and garlic soup I’m sharing here.
Cabbage is full of vitamin A, C, calcium, and potassium. Tomatoes are full of vitamin A (!!!), vitamin C, and (you guessed it) potassium. Potatoes are full of vitamin C and more Potassium than cabbage and tomatoes combined. Carrots don’t have much vitamin C to speak of but as everyone knows they are crammed with vitamin A and what many people may not know is that they are also quite rich in potassium. All the ingredients in this soup will fill you with vitamins and minerals. The navy beans are rich in calcium, phosphorous, and more potassium than any body could need.
The garlic (there’s a lot of it in this soup) is great for boosting the immune system and cayenne pepper is great for purifying your blood and helping it circulate better. In addition to that, the cayenne will help loosen phlegm which will help clear your sinuses.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 quarts of water (more if needed)
- 1 cup navy beans, uncooked
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 carrots, chopped med
- 1/2 head cabbage, chopped
- 3 med. potatoes, diced med
- 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (or 1 quart of home canned)
- 12 cloves garlic, pressed or minced fine
- 1/8 tsp cayenne
- 1 1/2 tsp oregano
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large soup pot on med/high heat and add the onion and bay leaves. Saute until the onions lightly brown.
- Add the water, beans, and salt. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to med/low and cook until beans are tender. The time may vary, for me it was about one hour. Be sure to check on them and stir them while cooking.
- Add everything else into the pot and turn heat back up to med/high. At this point it should be soupy but the amount of water you need may vary depending on how much of it cooked off while cooking the beans. All the vegetables should be completely covered with broth.
- Bring the soup back to a boil and then turn the heat down a little and let it cook until all the vegetables are tender. Probably about 30 minutes.
Notes
This soup makes 10 servings. I don’t make small batches of soup because we eat it for leftovers and sometimes freeze it. You can easily halve this recipe. I used 12 cloves of garlic but you can use more. Do it! The next time I make this soup I plan to increase the garlic up to an entire head. Once the soup is cooked through it doesn’t seem very garlicky.
Play with the amount of cayenne. A very little can be really hot so go cautiously. It should be hot enough to make you sweat a little and make your nose run after you eat it. It should not be so hot that it’s painful to eat and burns a hole in your eye socket. Unless you like pain like that, I won’t judge.
If you are inexperienced making soups I suggest you read my soup philosophy post- it will help you understand soups better and give you the confidence to play with them.