Pineapple cough syrup

Last night, we went to bed feeling grand and peaceful. Ish.
(3 kids, who am I kidding? It's like grand central station through our house).

This morning.

Death.

Sore throat, sore ears, runny nose, coughs from the boys, scratchy voices, cranky and tearful 'tudes.

Ready, go. 

Thankfully, Mom Whirlwind gets activated during these times, so I was able to roll out of bed and start getting my arsenal out to battle sickness and boost our immune systems before I lost my energy. Which happened at three. Thank you God for my husband's vacation time.

My newest addition to our natural living arsenal: Pineapple cough syrup!

Get a pineapple from the store. 

Don't open that canned stuff! Don't do it.

Cut the top, the peel, cut the pineapple off the core and then put the slices in a bowl.

Two cups and feed the leftovers to your sick children.

Voila.

Shred some fresh ginger-I did not have any on hand after 

my last batch of master tonic, so good thing I have

my oils!

Add one drop to the bowl. Just one. 

Cayenne pepper, baby. This is going to hurt. 

Note the Grinch pajamas. 

1/2 teaspoon

note: some people will say to skip this for kids. 

I say why bother making this if I'm going to skip something that's going to help. 

Get a lemon and this amazing contraption and juice the whole thing.

Bonus points if you bought an organic lemon. 

Add a tablespoon (note: just eyeball it because it's honey so yum)

of local honey. 

While you do that, heat up some water, and add dollops of honey and half a juiced lemon to the water for some throat soothing action. An old friend does this, and man am I thankful for it today!

Look at this goodness.

 Pour all of that into a food processor or blender; add some water to the bowl after to get all the honey and pepper. One more reason I love a good spatula. 

Wonder what that mystery pot is on the back of the stove? that's the core of the pineapple, boiling in water to make some thin juice I can then freeze in ice cubes and add to protein shakes and smoothies. If you bought an organic pineapple, you can add the peel to this pot. I didn't this time. 

You could strain it. 

Why? 

Tasty goodness involved; don't bother unless you have a texture issue. 

Store in the fridge. Label to save some poor sap who thinks it's a smoothie.

Take a teaspoon of that potent stuff--I'm going to alternate that with master tonic every hour during this sickness.

Oof. 

Chill out with some soup

See you on the other side!