If I feel up to it; if my family is sick; if friends are sick; if I have time; THIS is what I make to make us feel better/nuke the damn cold from orbit. After all, that’s the only way to be sure.

Garlic Soup
this make A LOT — use a BIG pan

6 whole heads of garlic, diced up into coarse chunks
1 large onion — white or yellow. Purple makes the soup an odd color, diced
2 heaping teaspoons of (dry) crushed red pepper
About four cups of broth (generally I use chicken but can use veggie broth for those what don’t eat the meat)
2 cups baby carrots (or carrot coins)
2 cups diced up chicken boobs (again, can use firm tofu that’s been pan fried to a golden brown here if you wish to stay away from meat — also, can use canned chicken boobs if you are having those high fever hallucinations that cause the frozen chicken to leap out of the freezer and come after you with a spoon. Of course, that last bit might only be something that happens to me. YMMV)
1 can Ro-Tel
Peppermill pepper with mixed peppercorns (white, black and red)
1 – 2 tsp sage (personally, I like 2 heaping tsp of this — but not everyone likes sage like I do)
1 large bay leaf
Olive oil
1 large bag of the No Yolk wide wiggle noodles

Giant pan on stovetop.
Heat on medium high.
Oil into giant pan.
Saute the onions until they are semi-transparent.
Stir in the garlic. Keep it movin’, Gramma*. When you can smell the garlic cooking — this is a distinctive aroma, you will know it — add the chicken. Stir them little chunks around and let them get good and coated by the onion and garlic-flavored oil.
Add the broth, the Ro-Tel, the carrots and the rest of the spices. Put a lid on the pan and turn the heat down to medium/medium-low.
Let this simmer for about 2 hours or so.
Add the noodles and cook according to package directions for doneness/and denteness — some people like their noodles sorta limp and some like em a bit toothy.

Eat hot. The pepper(s), garlic and onion are all lovely ways to take out anything that might be infecting your system. Plus, you can imagine tiny little mushroom clouds in your lymph nodes as you eat it — BA-WHOOM! Dead little bacteria/virii!

* – quote from a Foxworthy show. Don’t ask me — my brain is a useless dump of random quotes.