Anonymous wrote:Hot things-stove hot and/or spicy hot (preferably both). Spicy soups or noodle dishes are my favorite.

me too. If I'm under the weather, I often pick up a hot-n-sour soup from a Chinese restaurant.

Another vote for miso here! I have the paste and use vegetable broth. Add tofu and sometimes vegetables if I'm feeling ambitious.

I also agree with the toast mentioned in the OP.

Anonymous wrote:Wonton soup. When I have a cold I pretty much subsist on wonton soup and cereal. Maybe orange juice if my throat is sore enough.

So funny- that's exactly what I want too: wonton soup and orange juice. I'll also eat Cheerios because they feel so bland and harmless.

Garlic soup. I like the recipe in Oranges and Olives

Tom yum soup from a Thai place. When I am in the depths of a miserable cold, it is the only thing I can taste.

lentil soup is always good; kale soup is great.

Homemade congee

Ramen cooked in chicken broth with red pepper flakes, celery leaves and basil.

Thai curry. Chicken soup. Black tea w milk and sugar. Cookies.

OP, you've got a cold, you poor bunny. Eat the toast if you want it. Go back to complex carbs and leafy greens and whatnot when you're feeling better.

Matzo ball soup! Yum

Anonymous wrote:Sauté some onions & garlic, put in a whole chicken, fill large pot nearly to the top with water & add 2 cups rice. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low heat until cooked. Add green onions in bowl.

Can also add lemon grass or ginger (I buy the kind already hopped in the produce section) for extra flavor.

Oops! Salt & pepper to taste!

Sauté some onions & garlic, put in a whole chicken, fill large pot nearly to the top with water & add 2 cups rice. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low heat until cooked. Add green onions in bowl.

Can also add lemon grass or ginger (I buy the kind already hopped in the produce section) for extra flavor.

OP here--re the wonton, pho and miso people, do you make it yourself or buy it in a package/can from a store, or order it from a restaurant?

not the PP, but I have a Japanese grandma and grew up with miso soup as my comfort food. I always have miso paste, dashi (basically fish bouillon), and wakame (the seaweed) around (make a run to the asian grocery store periodically). Making miso is literally just boiling some water, adding a scoop of miso paste and a scoop of dashi to make the broth. Then I can add the tofu, wakame, and green onions if I feel like it. It takes all of 10 minutes to prepare.

For other types of noodle soups, I tend to keep asian noodles and soup bases around my house, as well as frozen wontons, fresh ginger, lemon grass, thai fish sauce, etc. So it's not exactly making it from scratch in that I have pre-made soup base, but I don't necessarily order it. Unless I am so incapacitated that I can't get up, then I send DH out for pho or ramen.

I have a freezer full of chicken stock. When one of us is under the weather, or even if we're just in flu-season prevention mode, we thaw out a quart, dilute it about 50/50 (like soup broth), then heat it in mugs and drink it instead of coffee or tea.

That aside, my favorite cold/comfort food is Chinese takeout. I start with the soups, in rotation -- wonton, hot and sour, chicken corn. If I'm congested, hot and sour with the mustard stirred in is the best. When I feel up to eating again, a spicy, garlicky shrimp dish usually gets me going. Or spicy cashew chicken.