HEALING – that’s an interesting word now. When I was growing up, the word mostly spoke to someone’s physical healing from a surgery, ailment or even addiction, whereas now, I feel I hear about it more speaking to a person’s emotional or psychological health.

In no way am I judging – far from it – as I’ve been on different healing paths throughout my life and the latter is definitely where I am now; however, in my experience, my physical body needs the nourishment first before I can handle the emotional change. Maybe it’s due to my former eating disorder, and maybe you go about it the other way. Either way, I’ve been craving warn broths lately and this has been giving my body deep nourishment through each of its ingredients.

Shiitake mushrooms, chaga and reishi are the wildcrafted stars by lowering inflammation, increasing immunity and having high levels of vitamins and minerals. Each one has other benefits whether it’s a high antioxidant level (chaga) to anti-cancer properties (chaga+stiitake) (chaga) to lowering blood pressure (reishi+shiitake) and lowering heart disease (reishi).

Thyme and garlic are both antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antiviral, and miso gives that extra boost of probiotics for a healthy gut. Kombu is rich in iodine to support a healthy thyroid, but if you’re hyperthyroid (have an overactive thyroid), please do not use it in this broth and add sea salt to taste at the end.

ingredients

6 cups water
6-8 dried shittake mushrooms
2 tablespoons ground reishi (or 4 fresh pieces)
1 tablespoon ground chaga (or 2 small fresh pieces)
2 pieces of kombu seaweed
small bunch (4-6 sprigs) thyme
1 bay leaf
4 fresh garlic cloves

optional additions

2 black garlic cloves
½” piece of chipotle
1 tablespoon miso

Place all of the ingredients, excluding the miso if you’re using, into a heavy bottomed pot and heat over medium high heat. Bring to a boil before lowering to a low simmer. Simmer for 60-90 minutes, before straining through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth.

If you’re using miso, stir in the miso once the broth is off the heat and strained to not kill the natural probiotics.