Sore Throat Home Remedy

It's that time of year again...everyone bust out the over-the-counter crap with ingredients I can't even pronounce, much less know where they come from!  Instead I've found a quick and easy home remedy to help sooth my sore/itchy/coughing throat that decided to give out on me this week.

I came across it on a blog called "Good Food Matters" and decided to try it out.  Click here for the link to the original post and recipe.  The author uses this home remedy whenever she feels a cold coming on.  It only uses 4 common ingredients, so she keeps a jar on hand and swallows a tablespoon every now and then.

I, however, concocted the recipe with a slight adaptation and drank the whole thing like a nightcap.  All I did was add a little more water and a little more honey than the original called for.  Here's the modified recipe:

1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp. organic honey
3/4 c. hot water

The directions are easy: dissolve spices in apple cider vinegar and hot water, add honey and stir.  Then drink up!

It is definitely a potent tonic, but my throat feels so much better now!

You Say Tomato

Ever since I was a girl, my mom has had a cookbook called "You Say Tomato."  There are recipes for anything and everything you can think of to do with a tomato, even desserts!  What I appreciate about the book is that each page has a brief history of where the recipe came from and how it has been modified over the years.


In the summer season especially, my mom's house is bursting with tomatoes from her garden.  So naturally, we turned to the "You Say Tomato" cookbook a couple weeks ago when I was visiting.  We decided on the traditional Spanish cold soup of gazpacho.  But with our own twist!

Apparently what makes gazpacho, well.....gazpacho, is that it contains a slice of stale bread.  So call us untraditional, but we left out the stale bread (we're German, not Spanish).  Joanne's recipe in the "You Say Tomato" book also uses croutons and a garnish, as well as heavily puréeing the soup ingredients.  My mom and I like our gazpacho to be finely chopped, almost like pico de gallo.  Hence, we used the salsa maker instead of a blender.  Here is the modified recipe:

6 large red tomatoes
1 large bell pepper (we used 2 small green ones)
1 large onion
1 large cucumber
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c plus 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
dash of salt and pepper, to taste
dash of cayenne pepper (we added that for extra spice)

Place all the ingredients in salsa maker (or blender) and chop finely until desired consistency.  Place in bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.  This recipe is supposedly for 6 servings, but it's an easy one to modify for larger groups.  If you enjoy fresh food as much as we do, this cold gazpacho will go quickly on a hot summer night!