I apologize for the dropped post yesterday–I’ve been sick. Such is life when Mister is a public school teacher.
This one wasn’t so bad as illnesses go, but I’m getting older and crabbier so it still managed to piss me off. Part of this has to do with the fact that I was coming down with it and still went to Six Flags and then went to IKEA when it was in full-swing. Needless to say, I was dead tired when I came back that day and cursed myself for forgetting that I’m no longer seven years old when a mild cold meant that life proceeded pretty much as usual only with a side of Triaminic.
I bought purse-pack tissues, DayQuil, NyQuil, nasal spray, and a neti pot. The DayQuil did nothing, the NyQuil just knocked me out, the nasal spray tasted like chemical wax down the back of my throat and the neti pot probably would have been great, but we had no non-iodized salt and the thought of trekking down to the supermarket to buy it made me woozy. The one thing that did seem to calm and soothe was a hot bowl of sai fun. Chicken from a bag to make it easy, whatever spare greens we had on hand, a little oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and hot sauce to clear the sinuses.
I’m all for chicken soup, but in times when you don’t have a babooshka around to labor over it for you, the next best thing (aside from cooked frozen chicken in a bag) is sai fun. When you’re sick, the last thing you want to do is cook but you still want comfort food which then becomes the trifecta of hungry + need comfort + don’t want to cook = junk food extravaganza. Macaroni-and-cheese-from-a-box anyone? Now that’s fine, but you’re not really getting the nutrients that your body probably needs to help it get better. Which brings me to sai fun. These are little bean curd noodles which have a chewy texture and don’t really taste like much, but soak in flavors beautifully. Sai fun is filling–and here’s the key–you don’t have to “cook” it. Put it in water, let it soak for 10 minutes, and throw it back with whatever vegetables you’ve managed to scrounge together in those 10 minutes. You can also stir-fry it if you like or soak it in broth to make soup. Then slurp up and feel better.
Filed under: Clean Food Daily , bean curd noodles, grains, legumes, noodles, sai fun, soup
