Slow cooker medicine

I've piled up all my vacation time to the end of the year. Daydreams of wonderful winter climbing adventures dancing through my head as I worked, counting down the days until my winter vacation came closer and closer. I poured over climbing guide books and fell asleep with the "Freedom of the Hills".
On the first day of vacation, last Monday, I got sick. Stupid, snot-filled head, coughing up a lung and spleen, achy-breaky, why does the universe hate me sort of sick. Bleh!!
After a hazy week of coughing and body aches, I'm coughing up the last of the residual lung sludge and my wonderful dear husband is now nursing the beginning the of the same stupid cold! ACK!!!!!!!
Hopefully he'll race through this cold faster than I did. He's a veteran of colds and is very experienced in having them. I, on the other hand, am one of those freaks that rarely ever gets sick. In fact, I spent the first two days of my cold in shock, wondering, where the heck did all this mucus come from and why, oh why, is it being stockpiled in my head?

And to add insult to injury, I didn't feel like eating all week! Double ACK!!!! Everything tasted like gamy cardboard and so I've been living off of toast and mandarin oranges.

This morning, I finally felt the beginning twinges of an appetite start to regain strength in me. I made chicken soup. Actually chicken and garlic slow cooker soup. I consider it part aromatherapy, part mother medicine.
Of course, I used local chicken and veggies. In the crock pot went a pair of skinless chicken breasts from the Shady Mile Farm Mart, a couple of Saanich onions, a couple of carrots from Gary Argyle's farm, and from my garden a whole head of garlic and 2 fistfuls of parsley, and a bit of diluted chicken stock. Here's how it's looking so far...














Don't bother peeling the garlic, keep it in the skin. You can remove the papery skin though. The garlic stew and braises into a lovely, sweet aromatic soft pate of heaven that can be squished onto bread when it's done.

Hope you all are doing well as we slip and slide into that holiday season. Remember to get your local turkeys from Shady Mile farm mart and Piper's Meats. For all those that are opening their homes for holiday parties, consider asking your guests to bring non-perishable foods for the Food Bank or gently used outer clothing, socks and toques for the shelters instead of a hostess gift. Or for $60 you can sponsor a local family to receive a monthly Good Food Box of fresh veggies and fruit for 6 months. For more information, contact Crystal Petersen at Nanaimo Foodshare at 250-753-9393.

Take care, be careful , don't drink and drive and watch out for elves!

Happy Holidays!

Jen