Homemade Cough Drops

The stuff solidifies like cement...
only this tastes better

My experimentation with Flan has led me to wonder what else I can do with melted sugar, since the bottom of each ramekin has a little bit of this lovely goodness. Thing is, it can burn pretty quickly once it melts down, and it hardens almost the second it's off heat, which meant I had to know what I was making before I made it.

Sadly, I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat. Nothing major, not like I suddenly had strep and would have to be evacuated on the first available chopper out of Korea. (Sorry. Most of medical knowledge comes from M*A*S*H reruns.) But as I felt a little grungy and didn't feel much like putting up with a cold for the next few weeks, I decided to take action. The best time to treat colds, from my experience as a massage therapist, is either the instant you start to feel it coming on, or right after it has hit you full force. Speeding things up at either of those points means your cold could become more intense, but it's over in a fraction of the usual time, and since two of my bandmates are pretty under the weather, I figured I'd just get it all over with.

After a loooooong hot bath with epsom salt and white vinegar, and a regular dose of Zicam, and a break from working out, and some comfort food (Ethiopian Beef Alicha and collard greens... drool), and a little extra sleep, I woke up this morning feeling far better. The only thing I wish I could have figured out was how to soothe my sore throat without the Zicam-- my usual staples of a spoon of raw honey, warm tea, steam, and gargling weren't getting the job done. And then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I wanted to try something else with the sugar. Heh. Now I get my chance!"

Pretty basic, no?

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of coconut sugar, brown sugar, or turbinado sugar
• large spoonful of raw honey
• lemon juice
• ground cinnamon powder

Directions:

Looks oddly like ground beef for tacos...

1. Put 1/2 cup of sugar in a pan on medium heat
2. Cook. Slowly. It will take time for it to melt the way it should, but don't speed up the heat, as this will most likely cause it to mutate into The Blob-- albeit, the sweet smelling Blob... until your house goes up in flames
3. Add lemon juice and cinnamon to your taste, but keep in mind that you want the flavor to last, and you want the benefits of lemon and cinnamon, which are excellent agents at ridding colds
4. Once the sugar starts to become a thin gel, add the honey, making sure to stir and mix well
5. Keep mixing until everything becomes cohesive
6. Pour mixture out onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, and spread out
7. Let cool until the sugar has completely hardened and cooled
8. Break apart, an activity that is oddly satisfying, almost like popping bubble wrap

I've been trying a few pieces over the last two hours, and my throat feels fantastic! Not a cough or a clearing of the throat, not a sneeze or a nose drip, and not a giant sugar spike either! My advice is to make these before you feel anything coming on, as you probably won't want to cook while you're feeling like poo. Then keep them in a mason jar or a plastic bag until you need them. I am soooo making more of these.

The final product

Burgers, Fries, Flan, and Wine-- Sounds Like a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Tribute Band

To my everlasting shame, I did not take pictures of the meal I am about to describe. No food porn today. Damn. I guess the vivid and slightly arousing descriptions will have to suffice.

We begin with a trip to Sprouts, wherein we find the most delicious selection of freakin'-random meats short of going on an Australian walkabout and hunting your own game in the Outback. Along with the standard yummies of elk, bison, and rabbit, there was also ostrich and kangaroo. Ostrich burgers are absolutely next on my list, since I've joked about them with one of my best friends for years. Kangaroo... eh, I'm not sure yet. I kind of only like eating animals that are ass-ugly, and kangaroos are far too cute... though now that I think about it, they are fairly deadly, so if it was up to me to hunt one, I couldn't guarantee that I would win... I mean, they have razor-sharp claws... and they can balance on their tails and deliver kicks worthy of MMA cage fighting... and they're wicked fast... and who know what they keep is those pouches of theirs... could be knives... or guns... or pepper spray... or nukes... anthrax maybe... but I digress.

Sandwiched right in between the venison steaks and the ground kangaroo were packages of "Wild Feral Boar". Now, have you ever seen a picture of a wild boar? No? Did you watch the first season of "Lost"? Okay then. So you'll know that these pigs are bold, italicized, underlined, 96-point font U-G-L-Y. (Picture provided for the doubtful.)

I rest my case.

The Meal

Bacon and beef-based burgers are meant to be together. (Say that five times fast.) But would pork hold up? Would it be pig overload...?

Naaaaaaah.

Bacon burgers are simple-- get ground meat, mix with fine slices of bacon, add flavor like freshly minced onion and garlic, and throw onto a griddle or grill. Saute portobello mushrooms in a pan with some olive oil and be sure to flip them a few times to get them cooked all the way through. Portobello bun, burger on top, done!

No burger is complete without fries. No fries are better than sweet potato fries. And nothing makes fries taste better than the right blend of spices. That's where I got creative. I mixed soy-free canola-based mayonaise with It's Greek To Me, a blend from a company in Colorado called To Market To Market that makes a whole variety of spice blends for dips and spreads. They're all gluten-free and kosher, even though one or two might have beans as part of their mix, or they might be recommended for use with cream cheese instead of mayonaise. Generously coat the sweet potato fries, bake for 30 minutes with a flip at the halfway mark, done!

Onto the coconut flan. If you took Spanish in high school, chances are you also had a taste of some slimy, half-formed "dessert" called flan. I think in order to teach Spanish at a certain level, the teacher must first prove how terrible they are at doing this wonderful dish justice, because I've had flan outside of that first mucous-y experience, and when it's done right, it's like silk.

Flan is essentially eggs, cream, and sugar. Doesn't sound all that Paleo-friendly, does it? Worry not. Here's the best solution I've come across*:

Ingredients:

Finished product

• 1 cup coconut palm sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 can full-fat coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• optional, though highly encouraged
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• chocolate
• honey (on top)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Heat 1/2 cup of sugar on a stovetop on low to medium heat to avoid burning, stirring frequently
3. Pour sugar evenly into 6 oven-safe ramekins, and pour quickly, because this stuff will harden almost instantly once it's off the heat (Side note: I'm going to use this to make my own cough drops for the winter)
4. In a food processor/blender/bowl, mix the four eggs and keep off to the side
5. In the same pan with the now rock-hard leftover sugar, combine coconut milk, vanilla, salt, and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. This is the best time to add any other flavors except for something like honey or caramel, as they're sugars and will change the consistency of the mixture
6. Once this mix is at a slow boil, take it off the heat
7. Get a whisk and slooooooooowly add the eggs to this whole mixture to keep them from cooking
8. Pour evenly into each of the ramekins, and place all ramekins into a baking dish wide and deep enough to hold them all at once
9. Add water to the baking dish (not the flan) so that the water is level with the flan (which should not be the top of the ramekins)
10. Bake for 35-40 minutes, let cool, then stick 'em in the fridge to let them solidify

And the final touch? Chocolate red wine. A very sweet red blended with chocolate. Warning: this is not like taking a box of red wine and blending it with Hershey's syrup or chocolate milk. This is a beautiful red with the darkest chocolate taste. I have a tremendous sweet tooth, and it still took me the better part of a half hour to finish one medium glass of this.

My oh my, was I a happy camper after this meal. Odds are, you will be too!

*Flan recipe courtesy of Paleo Effect with some alterations