Well, I'm sick, and J. reccomended chicken soup.

I've always been sceptical about chicken soup. Questions that come to mind are, why chicken and not other things? Why soup, and not the same ingredients on your plate with gravy, or a salad, and potatoes? What about a vegetarian option? But I've done a little reading up and apparently it's true. The onions and garlic contain natural pennicillins, this I already knew, but the chicken itself, apparently there's some enzyme that comes out of the bones when you make the stock. The enzyme isn't there if you don't use the bones.

And soup rather than dinner, because everyone knows that you gotta keep your fluid intake high when you're sick.

So this chicken soup recipe was sort of made-up on the fly, but here it is. It's a proper wholesome English-style soup.

1 pre-cooked roast chicken
2.5 litres water (about 5 pints)
2 cups/250g chopped carrots
2c/250g chopped onions
2c/250g chopped swede
3 cloves garlic (but you know, I think maybe I ought to have used double that)
1.5c/250g "soup mix" (from a packet - a mixture of dried lentils, split peas and pearl barley)
Fresh herbs, salt and pepper to season.
A massive saucepan or stockpot that holds a minimum of 8 pints/4 litres.

Strip the chicken carcass. Reserve the best meat for later, put the less-good meat in the pot with all the bones. All the skin was discarded - it makes the soup too greasy for my taste, and anyway, Xena was looking at me with those big brown "feed-me" eyes.

Add the water and a generous pinch of rock salt. Simmered for 45 minutes then strained. All the bones were discarded. The meat... again with the big brown feed-me eyes. The reserved stock was returned to the stockpot.

In another pan or wok, fry off the onions, garlic and vegetables in a little olive oil. When softened, add it all to the stock along with all the other ingredients including the reserved chicken. For herbs I used thyme today, mainly because I think thyme goes best with chicken. I would have used sage as well, if there'd been any fresh in the store. Add salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste.

Put the lid on the pot, bring to the boil then turn the heat as low as it'll go and just leave it to simmer for about an hour.

Note: The barley/lentil mix is optional. If you leave it out you'll want to reduce the quantity of water by about a pint, and increase the veg by about a cup.

Spend the next ten minutes trying to scrub the garlic and onion smell off my hands.

I'm also foregoing coffee today in favour of green tea with lemon, ginger and honey. I had a cup of that last night and felt it working almost right away. With any luck I'll be able to fight off this thing without resorting to pharmaceuticals.