Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup

The past week and a half have been rough for Morty.  He got a cold - not a particularly bad cold - but one that does make him cough quite a bit.  And the little guy has problems managing all the phlegm.   We had been going on several weeks of really good non-puk-i-ness.  But the coughing and the phlegm have made it too hard for him, and he just hasn't been able to hold his food down - especially at night.  To be honest, it's been a bit of a nightmare.  We did go to his pediatrician and have him checked out to make sure that his lungs were still clear (they were).  And from a couple of different doctors' advice, we've totally altered his feeding to try and make things a little bit easier.

• First, we are giving smaller feeds more often.  So he's now having 4 oz every 2 hours until he goes to bed
• Second, we started Morty's humidifier/air purifier up in his room
• Third, I stopped giving him his morning feed until he's pretty much cleared the junkies out of his system (for Morty, that's around 10 am)
• Fourth, I suction the mucus out of his belly in the morning.  I do this by flushing a couple ounces of water in through the tube, and pulling it back out with the syringe.  If he's got mucus, you'll see it and know.  It floats to the top of the water level in the syringe, and then you can push most of the water back into his belly, and dispose of the mucus.
• Fifth, I took the dairy out of his mix.  Only for a while.  It may not be quite the same as when someone orally drinks milk and gets really thick mucus, but it can't hurt to help thin things out.
• Sixth, as we learned quickly, if he pukes late at night in bed, don't bother trying to give him replacement food, as it will also come up soon after.

Table
In desperation and fatigue from late night coughs/pukes/cleanups, last night I decided to make a special soup for Morty.  It's a soup that comes from a woman in my mother's church.  The legend behind this soup is that while you are making the soup, you say a special prayer to help those who are sick who eat the soup, and they will feel better.  Totally worth a try.  Really, after a week and a half of 1 - 4 pukes a day, it's ALL worth a try.  The soup is named "Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup" and is slightly adapted from a recipe by Connie Reyes.  I don't have a link to this recipe online, as the copy I have is typed and photocopied!  Here it is:

Stock:
1 split chicken breast
3 large onions
Tops of a stalk of celery
4 qts water

Soup:
4 large carrots, finely diced
3 large celery stalks, finely diced
3 large potatoes, finely diced
16 oz diced tomatoes
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp cumin (I probably put in more than this)
1/4 tsp celery seed
chili pepper, to taste (I use lots)
1 hand full small thin noodles (I used 8 oz of angel hair)

1.  Boil the chicken breast in water with celery tops and onions for 40 minutes.  Remove celery and onions and discard.
2.  Remove the chicken and dice when cool enough to handle.
3.  Strain broth and cook remainder vegetables with the spices until vegetables are tender.
4.  Bring soup to a boil and add noodles and diced chicken.  Cover and turn off heat.  Noodles will cook in hot broth in about 15 minutes.
5.  While soup is cooking say a prayer asking to bless the soup that it will heal all the sick who partake of it.


If you were in a rush, you could make this recipe with store-bought broth and rotisserie chicken.  Although there is something nice on a crisp fall evening about having a boiling pot on the stove.  The steam from the boiling pot might also help clear things up a bit.

Tube
The blenderized g-tube version of this recipe basically takes 3 cups of the soup and blends it with a few other things.  I used 1/2 cup orange juice for the vitamin C.  I also added some honey because it's supposed to be a natural expectorant.

The blenderized mix comes out fairly low calorie, even with the extra noodles, bread, and oil.  But most people don't eat a ton when they're feeling sick anyway.

I blended this up while the soup was still pretty warm, so it flowed pretty well.  I did notice the next morning, however, that the blend had gotten quite thick - not unexpected as the pasta probably soaked up a lot of the broth, and the potatoes have a lot of starch.  To give it the "comfort food" factor, I'd probably heat it up before putting it through the tube anyway!  (I have an adult friend with a g-tube who tells me that while she doesn't taste the food that goes in through her tube, she definitely can feel if the formula or food is hot or cold.)

If the thickness is unmanageable, you could alter the soup/juice ratio.  When I made the second day of this with the leftovers, I used 2 cups of soup and 1 1/2 cups of orange juice, and it was thinner.

Here's the blenderized recipe:

orange juice	1/2 cup
Heaven's Mexican Chicken Soup	3 cups
Arnold 12 Grain Bread	2 slices
Canola Oil	3 T
honey	1 T
banana	1/2 small
diced pears in light syrup	4 oz
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	24.4
Cal/cc	0.8
% Fat	24%
% Carbohydrates	65%
% Protein	11%