Immunity Soup

Yum!

On Monday I woke up with what I knew was the start of a terrible sinus infection.

Sinus infections and I have a close personal relationship after living in Memphis-aka pollenpalozza-so I took myself to the doctor and got a prescription for a Z-Pak.

With all the crazy fluctuations in the weather recently I thought I'd cover all my bases and make a giant pot of what I call "Immunity Soup" since I didn't want to catch a cold too.

Probably could have used more garlic

I really believe in the healing power of food and this soup is chock full of my favorite immunity booster: GARLIC!

Other healthful ingredients:

Lemon
Spinach
Turmeric
Carrots

I know that looks like a lot of garlic. Charlie peeled it for me and it totaled nearly 3 entire heads. He was convinced it would be too much to eat. No faith. (shaking my head)

I simmered the garlic in chicken broth for about an hour while I made the pasta and prepped the rest of the ingredients which made the garlic fall apart tender. 

I made farfalle!

At this point, I tossed the garlic/broth mixture in the blender to puree the garlic. I then added the turmeric and returned it to the stove to simmer.

I hate soggy noodles and veg in soup. Therefore, I don't cook all of the ingredients together. 

I baked the chicken coated in herbs. Then I cut all the veggies. I tossed the carrots in the garlic and chicken broth to simmer while I brought the pasta water to boil and cooked the pasta. 

Finally, I brought it all together by adding the lemon juice to the broth and plating it. I tossed the spinach in each bowl and added the noddles. I let it all sit for the time it took me to slice and add the chicken breasts.

I also like doing things separate because it lets you add other ingredients to the leftover broth over the course of the week.

And, it makes it easy to adjust the flavors if you have a citrus phobic member of the family (ahem...Charlie).

This soup is incredibly easy to make but is a bit time consuming since I made the pasta from scratch. 

Now that I have Janet I am going to set one day aside soon and make a ton of fresh pasta to freeze so I have it on hand when I decide to make recipes like this on the fly.