Tag Archives: Onions

Smorgasbord Health Column – Food Therapy – The pungent defenders Onions and Garlic by Sally Cronin

Sally certainly knows her onions…Lots of great info on the benefits of eating your onions and garlic and recipes to make your mouth water and your body healthy…Enjoy!

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

As a follow on from the recent series on the Weekly Grocery Shopping List of foods that contain the nutrients the body needs I am going to repeat my series from 2017 on the health benefits of some of our most common foods.

Food therapy is a broad term for the benefits to the body of a healthy, varied and nutritional diet of fresh foods.

Most of us walk through the fresh produce departments of our supermarkets without really paying much attention to the individual fruits and vegetables. This is a great pity because the vast majority of these foods have been cultivated for thousands of years, not only for their nutritional value but also for their medicinal properties. If you eat a healthy diet you are effectively practicing preventative medicine. A robust immune system, not only attacks external opportunistic pathogens, but also works to  prevent rogue cells in the…

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Smorgasbord Health – Cook from Scratch with Sally and Carol Taylor – Onions and Garlic.. keep the doctor away!

I am loving this collaboration …Are you? I have learnt so much from Sally and I am loving it!

Pigs Heads!

pigs-headOn our recent visit to Tesseban Market, I spied these pigs heads and trotters aka pigs feet (which ) brought back childhood memories as my dad loved a pigs trotter.

I also remember at Xmas the photos of a pigs head with an apple in its mouth being the centrepiece of many a festive table.

So I have dug out a recipe for you just imagine all that lovely crispy crackling and those soft, luscious pigs cheeks….mmmmmmmmmm

Ingredients:

Olive Oil ( a good glug)

2 large onions, cut into chunks

1 head of garlic, cloves peeled ( I just bash to get more flavour)

½ a pig’s head (remove hairs with a razor)

1 cup sherry ( or balsamic vinegar)

1 small bottle cider.

1-litre chicken stock.

3/4 bay leaves.

Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

suckling-pig-214769_1920

Picture source: Pixabay

Lets Cook!

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees.

Pour the olive oil into a  wide,  deep meat dish (large enough)to accommodate) your pig’s head and put it on the heat. Add the onions and garlic and leave them to sweat. Cook gently until soft and slightly coloured.

Rub salt and pepper over the head and cover the ears with foil to stop them from burning.

Pour liquids over the pig’s head, add the bay leaves and season with salt & pepper.

Cover the tray with greaseproof paper to ensure that the pig doesn’t dry out and cooks evenly.

Cook for 2 ½ hours until it is completely cooked  (soft). If you want crispy crackling take the greaseproof paper off after this time and leave in the oven to brown for about half an hour.

When ready, remove the head and place on a warm plate…

Serve with a salad and the  juices from the pan (boil to thicken)

This can make a lovely centrepiece if you have guests and use the whole head…especially if you do one and a half times the recipe and extend the cooking time.

Thank you for reading I hope I didn’t make you feel too squeamish….