Chicken noodle soup

Everyone (except for me) is sick this week... really sick with a flu virus. I battled it with lots of sleep, citrus, liquids, and Ease-a-Cold (preventative tablets with Zinc, vitamin C and echinacea)... and I was only mildly tired and chilled. Whereas the rest of the family has had terrible fevers, pains, chills, sore throats. So I'm lucky. Except I'm sick of everyone else groaning. Ooops you've discovered my secret: I'm a Bad Mother. I have no patience when others are sick. Sigh. But hey I made them chicken noodle soup! And jello!

I'd been saving leftover chicken carcasses in the freezer for a while and used them to make a very rich broth (as per Betty Crocker, I discard the initial vegies used to make the broth, then add lots more fresh ones later). I'd read a medical journal article PROVING that chicken noodle soup improves the immune system, and their recipe had sweet potato and pumpkin in it (probably the vitamin A is great for the immune system). So in addition to the other vegies of potato, onion, lotsa garlic, carrots and celery, I added a quarter of a Jap pumpkin. I let it cook until the pumpkin completely disintegrated, making the stock a lurid orange-y yellow with a lovely sweet flavour.