This post is dedicated to another essential spice which you should always have in your kitchen (especially in the winter): ginger!
Ginger is a tuberous perennial, with gnarly irregular appearance, and is light yellow. It is a pasrt of lily family (go figure). Its smell is markedly pleasant and strong, and its taste is prickly and slightly bitter. You can find it in various shapes, I have it in powder and as a root.
Ginger is markedly sanative and is used for various things, mostly for: stomach problems, nausea, respiratory problems and it even decreases the growth of cancer and tumors.
If you suffer from travel nausea, instead of taking huge amounts of dramamine, knocking yourself out and slobbering all over your travel companion you can try this: in a glass of water grate a little piece of ginger root, or one tea spoon of ginger powder and drink it for at least three days before the trip. There’s another little trick: slice the ginger root into very thin slices, dry them and carry them in a candy box so you can eat it like a bonbon along the road trip.
If you suffer from any of the above this is the magic trick:in a little pot put 0,5 l of water and put it on the stove. While the water is heating up, grate a small piece of ginger root, and drain it (ginger is very juicy). Add that juice to boiling hot water and let it boil for five minutes. If you want stronger tea, putt both the juice and ginger pieces into water and cook exactly the same way. Move from fire, let it cool a bit and then drain it. After ten days of consummation you should feel melioration. And now something extra healthy, bombastically good for you. Ginger-garlic paste! A part from being used as a salad dressing, meat sauce etc. In Indian cuisine, this is one of the nature’s most healthy things ever, health bomb that will empower your immune system and decrease all inflammatory processes with its antibiotic effects (and it’s not harmful).
This is how you do it: in a mortar mash an equal amount of fresh ginger and garlic. If you like finer textures use a hand blender. You can make a lot of it and then store it in a tightly closed jar. In that case, add a little bit of oil to make it fresh.
When you first taste you’ll probably be like “Oh-my-God, what the he heck was I thinking?!”, but this paste is so good and effective that you can survive a tea spoon a day. You can use it every day, just in case, or when you feel you’re coming down with something (flue, weakness, sour throat…).
Chewing on a fresh piece of ginger is effective if you ate food that’s difficult to digest. If you have a slow metabolism do this: grate the ginger root and mix it with salt and lemon juice. Chew it slowly for the best effect. It’s the best thing when you stuff your face with beans, peas, corn and other melodic vegetables. 😛
If you have a case of sinuses gone wild (like I do), you should eat as much ginger as possible. If the infection is already active, instead of sitting with a towel over your head and inhaling steam, make a wrap out of hot water and ginger in powder and apply it to your sinuses. Don’t get surprised if your nose unclogs and makes you feel like you have Niagara falls for a nose.
For a prevention grate ginger into honey, add some cinnamon as well, and eat three times a day, one tea spoon before every larger meal. Or buy ginger paste that has a proven effect with all the respiratory issues.
Ingredients: honey, grape molasses, maltose, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, lesser galangal, carob, clove, licorice root, rose hip, eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil.
