Immune-Boosting Foods for Winter

Immune-Boosting Foods for Winter

Theres nothing worse than a winter flu or stuffy head cold. So if you want to build your bodys immune system to be ready to fight the cold weather nasties, now is the time to be loading up on high antioxidant foods.

A daily dose of garlic or ginger can provide a handy defence to winter ills, while highantioxidant herbs and spices can boost your bodys immunity while adding flavour to food.The makers of Gourmet Garden, have turned classic winter weekday recipes into greatimmune-boosting meals by simply adding herbs in a tube to spice up not only the flavours,but also the nutritional value.

Your cold and flu arsenal for winters can also be boosted by adding other immune-boostingfoods like sweet potatoes, mushrooms (particularly shitake), nuts including almonds, low fatyoghurt and lean beef to your favourite recipes.

Theres nothing like a healthy winter soup to warm yourself and your soul, so GourmetGarden has developed some big flavour, antioxidant rich soups to help you ride out thewinter months flu-free.

Butternut Pumpkin Soup is perfect for weekday nights, not only being delicious butsimple and easy to prepare. Simply dice pumpkin, add hot chicken stock to pumpkin andstir. Mix through ½ teaspoon each of Gourmet Garden Garlic and Coriander (1 teaspoon ofGourmet Garden Chilli is optional) and allow to simmer. Once all the ingredients aresoftened simply put through a blender and serve with a dollop of yoghurt and a sprinkling offreshly ground pepper.

Chicken soup has long been regarded as one of the prize cold and flu fighting meals. If youare looking for a complete meal in your soup, try Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup. Simplycook chicken in a wok with Gourmet Garden Garlic, then add a combination of stock, water,carrots, cabbage, soy sauce, asparagus and Gourmet Garden Ginger to the pan. Bring tothe boil, then reduce heat and simmer until asparagus is tender. Add noodles and simmerfor a further three minutes.

Another great soup which is like a meal in itself also is Minestrone Soup. Start by cookingchopped onion, Gourmet Garden Garlic and tomato paste; then add three cups tomatopasta sauce, two cups vegetable stock and two cups water and bring to the boil. Add dicedzucchini, celery, carrot and yellow squash and a 400g can of drained borlotti beans.Simmer for 15 minutes, then add half a cup of macaroni pasta and simmer again until pastais tender. Season with salt and pepper and add one tablespoon of Gourmet GardenOregano and two teaspoons of Gourmet Garden Basil.

Another dish to pack a powerful immune-boosting punch is Gingered Vegetable Soup.Cook onion until brown then add small chunks of carrot, potato and pumpkin and/or sweetpotato and chicken or vegetable stock. Cook until tender, then add cubed red capsicum,Gourmet Garden Garlic and Ginger. For added spice add Gourmet Garden Chilli andCoriander.

Complete your immune-boosting meal with a cup of green or black tea and a few pieces ofdark chocolate and you could be well on your way to a healthy winter.For other great soup recipes and meal ideas visit www.gourmetgarden.com