Spring Sniffles

Some of you who read this blog are probably sat there thinking "why is she writing a  about sniffles and the common cold?"  And you are probably considering ignoring the rest of this post because it does not apply to you, but I can tell you now that this will apply to you soon because the common cold is making a come back for its spring season!  

Everyone becomes poorly for one reason or another, whether that be as a result of catching it off someone else or because they were just run down in the first place.  Whatever reason it is, we all end up feeling just as awful and as useless as ever.  I personally dislike colds, there is no cure or real relief, even the so-called 'Lemsip' does not fulfill its aspirations of cold relief.  And, regardless of how much you try and rest the boredom eventually sets in and you find yourself back at your desk, which is where I ended up today on day two of my cold.

This morning I'd been made irritable, fed-up and annoyed at the hands of my lethargy, in spite of ten hours sleep, and my lack of enthusiasm for anything.  So, in a bid to wake myself up I concocted a cheap and easy homemade cough syrup which you can have with hot water or just as it is out of the bowl, and it is not as nasty as some of the cough syrups out there like 'Covonia.' BLACH!

Ingredients:

x1 2inch knob of fresh ginger 

x2 sticks of lemon grass

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

x5 Blackberries

25ml of water

125g of caster sugar

Method:

1.  Chop-up all of your ingredients and add them to a medium/low heated milk pan, stir gently for 5 minutes and then add boiling water; boil for a further 10 minutes.

2.  Add some of the sugar and gently stir it in and leave to boil for 5 minutes.  Keep doing this until all the sugar has been used.

3.  Leave on a window sill, with the window open to allow the syrup to cool down and set, then take on its own or add to a mug of hot water. 

NB: please do not be tempted to try this until it has cooled down, otherwise you WILL burn yourself!  Also, have a tbsp full before bed time to help you get some decent shut-eye.

Why these ingredients?

Ginger helps to relieve any nausea you may have.

Lemongrass and lemon juice have anti-bacterial properties and antitoxins.  It helps to loosen and lessen mucous, and relaxes muscles.

Blackberries are a good source of vitamins A and C, potassium and calcium. 

Sugar will help perk you up a little and also makes the syrup taste more like something you would find in a confectionery store than your local pharmacy.

Hope you guys like my cough syrup recipe**

I made this up on my own this morning with some ingredients I had lying around in my fridge.