SELF SUFFICIENT SUNDAYS...COUNTRY FRIED PORK CHOPS, GRAVY, CORN BREAD AND ROASTED GARDEN VEGETABLES

Another fabulous total self sufficient dinner all from the garden, this is the first year we have succeeded in having a great choice of meals that come completely form our garden small holding, the satisfaction of shopping from the vegetable beds will never change for me I love wandering down talking to the vegetables and the chickens while I pick our dinner, the garden is always surprising me with changes.

One of my husbands favourite comfort dinners with the added left overs bonus for me of making my own crackling flavoured lard that I use in my hot water crust or rough puff pastry.  The lard comes from the pork chop fat and skin that I remove from the pork and render down in the oven.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

2 pork chops fat removed

4 tbsp flour

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 ltr ground nut oil

Roasted vegetables

1 Beetroot rough chopped

2 Carrots sliced long

4 small onions halved

2 potatoes rough chopped

1 courgette rough chopped

1 leek chunky sliced

1 pepper chunky chopped

4 radishes halved

1 tbsp coconut oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

Country gravy

4 rashers of bacon chopped

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp lard

2 tbsp flour

Sea salt

Black pepper

White pepper

500 ml Whole milk

Chilli corn muffins

2 cups of cornflour (polenta)

1 corn on the cob

1 onion

1 tsp coconut oil

1 tbsp sugar

2 red chillies

200g grated cheddar/Parmesan 

2 eggs beaten

300ml of milk

Salt and black pepper

Pre heart your oven to 180 degrees, the roasted vegetables will take around 35 minutes, so this is your time line to serving.  Peel all the vegetables and roughly chop keeping hard the vegetables the same size, toss in the coconut oil season with sea salt, black pepper and place in a shallow roasting pan pop in the oven, you will need to toss these half way through, not essential but you get a better overall roasted flavour if you do.

Next make the chilli corn muffins, grease your muffin tin, pan fry the onions in the coconut oil until soft add the sugar and cook for a further five minutes then add the sweetcorn and chillies and take off the heat, meanwhile in a bowl add the cornflour, salt, pepper, eggs and cheese and mix well together, add the fried onion mix and enough milk to make a wet thick batter, spoon into muffin tins and bake for 16-18 minutes, (theses gorgeous corn muffins are best eaten warm straight from the oven), which by now will be in time with the roasting vegetables finishing.

Place a deep based pan on the hob and fill with the oil, slowly over 15 minutes (while the corn muffins are cooking) heat the oil to around 160 degrees, so that when you are ready to bring everything together you only have to increase the heat a little to bring the temperature upto 180 degrees for cooking the pork, this will only take a few seconds, meanwhile prepare the pork chops by cutting off the fat, reserve this for rendering down to lard (free food), then lay each chop between two sheets of cling film and using a rolling pin bash out as thin as you dare!  

On a plate place the flour and season with the salt and pepper, you can add any herbs and spices if you want, mix and dust the pork chops in the seasoned flour and place to one side while you make the country gravy.

In a frying pan melt the coconut oil and lard, pan fry the bacon until medium crispy then add the flour which will make a standard roux, now to add the milk slowly in batches mixing throughly until smooth, you may not need all the milk, I like to my country gravy medium thick in consistency, season to taste with sea salt, white and black pepper, keep warm on a low heat.

Now to cook the country fried pork, bring the pre heated oil up to 180 degrees and gently place in the pork chops to fry, these will take around two-three minutes, using tongs turn over half way through, drain on kitchen paper and bring your meal together and enjoy.

SELF SUFFICIENT SMALL HOLDERS BREAKFAST

The wonderful self satisfing feeling of padding bare foot through the grass down the garden to collect some eggs, cherry tomatoes and hopefully find a mushroom for breakfast to go with the home reared sausages and home cured bacon from the freezer gives me a warm glowing fuzzy pleasing feeling of success, success from many nights slug hunting, bird avoiding, weeding, watering and badger devastation (because apparently my veg beds are in their path)!  To have a bounty of honest food from the garden is worth every glorious moment of growing it.

Ingredients

(Serves 2)

4 free range eggs

14 cherry tomatoes

2 mushrooms

4 sausages

8 rashers of sweet cure bacon

Sprig of basil

Glug of oil

On a medium high heat brown off the sausages then turn the heat down to medium low to slowly finish cooking your sausages, this should take about thirty minutes, the reason for this is not to allow the skins to pierce keeping the sausages succulent, juicy and full of flavour.  Ten minutes before the sausages are ready, place the bacon under the grill to cook.  Next place the tomatoes in a frying pan with a glug of oil and sear then turn down to a medium heat you want the tomatoes to just hold themselves together so when you pop them in your mouth they melt bursting out all their flavours.  At the same time put your mushrooms in a pan with a hint of oil or butter and let them kiss the pan, they do not need to cook for long.  Finally fry your eggs to your style, me I like my eggs over easy and my husband likes the yolks splattered into the white and fried, add a sprig of basil to the tomatoes.

GAUCHO STEAK WITH CHIMICHURRI SAUCE

I totally underestimated the gorgeousness of this lovely fresh vibrant piquant sauce, it lifts the steaks flavour without over powering and with the balanced fresh softened sharpness and wonderful garlicky background you may find as I did I enjoyed this sauce just as much as the steak!

Ingredients

(serves 2)

2 x 8-10oz ribeye steaks

1 tsp of oil

Sea salt and black pepper

Chimichurri Sauce

1 cup flat leaf parsley

5 cloves of garlic grated

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp chilli

2 tbsp fresh oregano

2 tbsp fine chopped shallot

3/4 cup ground nut oil

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

3 tbsp lemon juice

First make the quick and easy chimichurri sauce, place all the chimichurri ingredients except the oil, red wine vinegar and lemon juice in a food processor and blend/pulse until finely chopped add the oil, red wine vinegar and lemon juice to the processor and pulse until evenly combined, taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Heat a frying pan to a medium hot add the oil, season the steaks with salt and pepper and sear in the pan, don't be tempted to turn the steak to early you want to get a lovely crust layer of flavour on each side.  Cook to your choice remembering to go approx 2 degrees under your finished cooked tempretaure as during resting the steaks will carry on cooking and come up by two degrees.  This is not so important if you are a medium to well done person.  Once your steaks have reached your cooking tempretaure take them out of the pan and leave to rest for two-three minutes, slice on the diagonal and serve with a generous drizzle of the vibrant fresh chimichurri sauce.

Blue  50 degrees

Rare  55 degrees

Medium rare  60 degrees

Medium  65 degrees

Well done  70 - 75+ degrees

SELF SUFFICIENT GARDEN STUFFED RATATOUILLE PASTYS WITH SPICY TIO PEPE TOMATO DIP

My self sufficient garden this part of the year is so rewarding and inspiring it is this time of the year that I find myself eating mainly vegetables that I trundle off down the garden each day to pick, seeing which vegetables are ready decides my meals for the day, today I felt inspired to make ratatouille but instead of in a tomato sauce I thought I would stuff old fashioned pastry empanadas with the ratatouille and serve a spiced tio pepe tomato dunking sauce, outstanding I had to fight my husband for them!

Ingredients

(Makes 10)

The Pastry

450g plain flour

110g cold lard grated

100g cold butter grated

Leg pinch of salt

180ml cold water

Ratatouille 

What ever your garden or fridge offers

1 courgette sliced

3 beetroots peels, thin sliced

1 onion sliced

1 onion fine diced

 1 clove garlic chopped

1 leek fine sliced

2 spring onions fine sliced

1 pepper fine diced

1 fennel fine diced

2 chillies chopped

4 radishes diced

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 egg beaten 

Tomato Tio Pepe sauce

10 lrg tomatoes

1 tsp coconut oil

1 clove garlic chopped

1 onion fine diced

100 ml Tio Pepe 

Salt and pepper

First make the pastry, place all the ingredients except the water in a large bowl and roughly rub together, you don't want to create a breadcrumb mix, keep clumps of fat and flour as this allows the pastry to be more like a light flakey puff pastry, this happens because as the clumps of fat melt during cooking they rise up creating air which in turn creates the light puff flakey pastry.  Add the water and gently bring together to losely form a ball, wrap in paper and chill for around 30 minutes, while you make the tomato sauce and ratatouille.

Tomato sauce next, in a saucepan heat the coconut oil add the onion and garlic and soften for approx five minutes, mean while slice the tomatos in half and place face down in the saucepan to simmer away for ten minutes or so until softened, gently peel off the skins, they will come away in one pull, add the tio pepe and reduce by half. Mash down the tomatos and season with salt and pepper to taste.

And now for the ratatouille, first take the finely diced and sliced garlic, onion, leek, spring onion, pepper, fennel, chilli and radishes, place the coconut oil in a frying pan and add the chopped ingredients and gently soften for around five minutes, remove from the heat, season to taste and keep to one side.  Take out the pastry now to come back up to room temperature while you make the ratatouille.

In the same frying pan add some more coconut oil and pan fry the sliced beetroot, courgette and sliced onion until just soft, season with salt and pepper to taste and keep to one side while you roll out the pastry.

Dust your work top with flour and roll out the pastry nice and thin cut circles out of approx five inches in diameter, place a teaspoon of the tomato sauce in the centre of the pasty, top this with some of the beetroot mix and then the diced ratatouille, brush half the pastry edge with the beaten egg wash and fold the pastry over the filling and pinch the edges together to make a seal.  Brush with egg wash and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden.  Serve warm with a side bowl of the tomato sauce for dunking this gorgeous little parcel of home grown satisfaction.

FIRE PIT HOW TO BUILD AND COOK GAUCHO COWBOY STYLE

I had great fun building this fire pit and even more Cowgirl fun cooking on it.  Cowboy cooking over wood adds a great depth of flavour and the slow cooking keeps the meat succulent and juicy, the slight char on the outer fat adds unbelievable flavour along with the wood smoke flavour.  This has been some of the best flavoured meats I have eaten, simply just seasoned meat cooked over wood fire, I am a converted Cowgirl!

The first job was to find reclaimed old London red fire bricks, these are bricks that are solid all the way through and have been fired in a kiln so they can take the heat of a fire pit or pizza oven.  Best Demolition reclamation yard not to far from me luckily had hundreds in stock.

I wanted to build my pit so that I would be able to cook a whole hog or what ever the future might inspire me to cook on the pit.  I made the pit 190cm long buy 80cm wide and this luckily also worked really well with the red London bricks because I did not need to cut any of them as they are all a random size with in 1-2cm so I was able to swap bricks around to fit.

I first marked the fire pit base on the patio in chalk and then laid all the bricks down in the pattern that fitted the space.  I then laid down a length of wood along each side and screwed them together just to give me a frame and template.  I then removed all the bricks ready to place cement down and re-lay all the bricks in the cement.

For the first layer I made my cement in the ratio of 1 part cement powder to three parts fine sand and enough water to create a medium thick consistency.  In sections I laid the cement on the floor and settled the bricks in as tight together as I could using the wood frame as my guide to the size.

Keep any eye on the level of the pit floor if you need to, I had to as my patio had a slope overall of six centimetres, I wanted the fire pit to be rustic therefore I was not overally worried about the levels being totally straight.

Once I had cemented the whole fire pit base I then laid the first layer of the wall, again just using cement under each brick and in between each brick approx one inch thick, I used the spirit level on each brick to keep the wall level.

The next layer of the fire pit walls we need to have periodic gaps, these will allow air to flow under and up through the fire feeding the flames so you can get a really good fire that heats the pit so that as the flames calm down the heat loss is minimal and slow.

Repeat the first layer of building the wall off setting the bricks from the layer below and keep going until you are happy with the height, I decided on 60cm depth which I worked out from a table fire pit we have and then the height I cooked the meat over.  I plan on having a horseshoe gaucho cooking rack made in time to go in the pit that will allow me to adjust the height of the skewers, at the moment I am using loose left over bricks stacked on the edge of the pit to give me different heights.

The finished pit now all I need is a grate for the bottom and a test run to fire the pit up, but as usual in true fashion I have just finished the pit and have 50 people coming for a pop up Gaucho fire pit party, where I am cooking whole legs of lamb and sides of sirloin in one big cook out!  See below!

The first fire, I was so nervous that the fire pit was going to blow up, people started to arrive for the pop up restaurant and the fire was well under way, working on the same principles that my pizza oven I built last year has taught me was to get the fire established for a couple of hours before beginning cooking, then it will be super hot and retain cooking heat while the flames fade down so you can cook without burning.  At one point during establishing the fire I had my back to the pit and I heard massive deep ping noise like something snapping under pressure and I truly believe that the patio jolted, I slowly turned around expecting to see the fire pit wall blow out but it was fine, it turned out to be the fire grates in the bottom of the pit buckling under the heat.  

Getting ready for the great Gaucho cook out, I had practised on my small table pit a few times and knew that I needed the fire pit to retain enough heat for 70 minutes to cook the meat, I did not want to have to re-kindle the fire as I was using the whole length of the pit and that would mean taking some of the skewers off to allow the fire to come back up again and as I had around 50 people to feed in one sitting I needed this to go to plan.

GAUCHO PICANHA ASADO

GAUCHO CARNEIRO LAMB

One hour over the wood fire pit and looking good this little fire pit did me proud and I am so pleased  that we had a really lovely and sociable Gaucho party, it was great that lots of people wanted to be part of the cooking and that created the gaucho style hospitality and when we came to serving the meat it was in true rodizio style.

Dad's 70th Birthday Gaucho party, rodizio style carving the meat for all the family.

HOW TO MAKE COCONUT MILK

The fabulous coconut a superfood that if needs be you could live off completely, the coconut water is also a sterile liquid that can be used as an infusion for iv fluids in an emergency.  Extremely healthy and full of (MCFA) medium chain fatty acids and lauric acid which we almost immediately break down so our bodies do not have to work at digesting the healthy fats so we use this fat and won't store it, so enjoy this superfood.

There is a simple effective method to opening a coconut in one hit that breaks the coconut in half, over a bowl take a bolster, not a club hammer like in my photo!  My husband hit this coconut several times and not a dent or crack did it make, a quick google and a bolster tool and hey presto successful full split all the way round in the first whack!

Take your coconut and locate the three eyes in a shape of a triangle on the end, hold the coconut with the one eye point of the triangle facing up, this is the side you are going to whack as it is the weak side of the shell, with a bolster or large (machette) style knife give one solid confidante whack holding the coconut over a bowl, a crack will appear all the way around the coconut, job done!  Pull apart and let the liquid pour off into the bowl, to remove the coconut flesh from the shell you can do this one of two ways, either slide a knife between the shell and flesh and prize off or whack the outer shell cracking and peeling off.  

Either finely grate by hand or blitz in a blender all the coconut flesh, I blended my coconut for quickness and ease.

Add twice the amount of just boiled water to the coconut and blend for around two to three minutes until you have a creamy coconut milk.

Take a bowl and place a muslin over the bowl, pour your blended coconut mix into the muslin and strain into the bowl, then gather up the muslin cloth and squeeze out all the liquid 

This is your first pressing and the top of this milk with set with the coconut cream.  Repeat the process again and you will make coconut milk again but a little thinner on consistency and flavour.  Keep the now soft coconut flesh and use in cakes, soups and stir fry's.

My geeky food science bit...

Coconuts are rich in fibre, Vitamin C, E,, B1, B5, B6,, iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous.  Extremely healthy MFCA and lauric acid easily digested and almost immediately broken down in your saliva and gastric juices.  This means pancreatic fat digesting enzymes are not essential which puts less strain on your liver allowing it to work more efficiently.  Anti viral, anti bacterial, protects body form infections and viruses.  Regulates thyroid function and is highly nutritious.

SMALL HOLDERS SELF SUFFICIENT SUNDAY ROAST DINNER

The passion and soul satisfying honest feeling of wondering down you garden and picking all your food for your totally self sufficient dinners is a glorious gift for all the growing, watering and nurturing of your vegetable beds.  Walking out my door down my path and padding barefoot threw the grass to root around the vegetable beds for the best carrots, beetroots, leeks and marrows, then ambling off to the stored hessian sacks for this years potatos and short wonder into the orchard to pick a couple of apples for the apple sauce and for pudding to go with the plums and blackberries from the garden hedge then finally a loin of pork from last years pigs from the freezer along with a cube of home rendered lard completes the wholesome free garden shopping.  This Sunday dinner was worthy of a champagne toast.

Gorgeous home reared roasted loin of pork with roasted beetroots, potatos, yellow and orange carrots, marrow, leek and courgettes.  Served with garden apple sauce and bone stock gravy.  The wonderful wholesome clean feeling every mouthful delivers elevates this humble simple roast dinner to a higher plane.

My home vegetable beds, so far we are completely self sufficient all year through with onions, carrots, chillies, tomato sauce and pasatta, beetroot, parsnips, leeks, corn, fennel, celery, herbs, apples, blackberries and plums.  Seasonal only for cabbage, courgettes, squashes, salad, spring onions, radishes, tomatoes and herbs.

Love the garden encroaching on my front door step, growing extra pots of vegetables and salads on the door step brings my garden closer to my kitchen and brings a smile to my face every time I go in 

or out.

Our wonderful hens, these ladies give us beautufil eggs and supply us with unlimited amusement everyday with their individual personalities and characters.

Sunday roast vegetables

No matter how small your garden is you can grow something, even if you grow your own chillies, spring onions and salad for the summer you are not only making a difference on the environment but in yourself too, home grown vegetables taste so much better and I like to think have more nutrients, no chemicals and bring a smile to your plate.

FIRE PIT ROASTED LAMB GAUCHO CHURRASCARIA COOKING

COWBOY COOKING ON YOUR FIRE PIT

Gaucho cooking is such an honest and simple way to cook, there is nothing you can not cook over a wood fire pit and I feel the honest rustic flavour does something to your senses, it is after all how we all cooked until recent years.  Not only does cowboy cooking give you this it also brings a great social gathering aspect to the pit, known as asado, people love to be involved and help with the cooking and this makes for a great atmosphere.

 Fire pit cooking is a slow cook, even though the base temperature at the start was over 400 degrees, the heat lowers as the fire pit slows down and that allows the meat to cook firstly at a high temperature and then cook slower as the temperature lowers allowing the meat to rest while cooking, this gives everyone time to talk and share in the cooking.  Adjusting the height or distance of the meat from the fire pit is how you control the heat.

I like to lower the meat as the fire pit heat lowers keeping the meat close to the heat, which means I do not have to re-kindle the fire, then on the final pit height I leave the meat to slowly rest over the wood flame adding flavour.  This is the most juiciest and flavoursome meat I have ever cooked and the easiest, it is very difficult to over cook the meat, with gaucho style hospitality and service known as rodizio you carve the meat from medium to rare and then place the skewers of meat back over the pit to cook on or keep warm, this is so you can serve to everyone's taste.

The first fire in the pit, I will admit the pressure and anticipation was high for the first fire lighting, concerns were firstly that we had 47 people for lunch and there was no way my oven would handle this amount of meat and secondly the fire pit staying alight and not blowing up when it would probably pass 500 degrees!  There was at one point around 30 minutes in to the established fire when we all heard a massive ping and I swear the patio moved!  We all looked straight at the pit, but we realised it was still standing and it must have been the fire grates in the bottom of the pit that had probably buckled under the heat, we were right and this gorgeous pit did us proud.

GAUCHO PICANHA ASADO

Whole sides of ribeye steak, cut into half then bent into a c shape and skewered all the way through, this is known as picanha and usually sirloin steak (botton).  These took 45 minutes to cook to rare 50 degrees, 60 minutes for medium 55-60 degrees and 75 minutes for well done 70 degrees. 

CARNEIRO

Gaucho legs of lamb, this were whoppers, bone in and around 4kg each, These took 55min-75mins to cook over the pit to medium rare 55 degrees, then allow 10 minutes resting away from the heat but on the side of the fire pit.

This is such a great social and calm way to cook for lots of people, it was great fun and I loved that lots of people want to help and be part of the cooking.

GOOD COOKING OVER WOOD

I don't know why gaucho cooking is so inspiring, it is very simple and honest, maybe that is it, no fancy gadgets like water baths or steam jets, it really is honest cooking that produces an outstanding quality of food, the wood flamed crust on the lamb and beef can not be beaten or faked, that crispy but fatty soft juicy smoked crust is a burst of heaven in your mouth, and the succulent tender meat just makes me just want to eat and eat and eat!

GAUCHO DAD'S 70th BIRTHDAY FIRE PIT PARTY

CLAY OVEN BUILDING HOW TO REPAIR CRACKS IN YOUR WOOD FIRED CLAY OVEN

With a very wet but equally sunny summer, I have been caught off guard a few times with glorious sunny late evenings cooking in the clay oven then as the oven is still hot but so is the evening I have left the cover off my gorgeous clay oven only for there to be a heavy down pour in the early hours of the morning, several times my clay oven got very wet and some of the clay washed away and created some pretty big cracks upon drying.  Not to worry this is easily repaired.

The rain has softened and washed/melted off a thin layer of clay which has exposed the outlines of the hand made clay bricks that I used to make the final layer and exposed a rather awesome crack!  This is not a disaster in the great scheme of things and after a little rational thinking it was clear only another layer of clay was needed to make good.

This is a pretty big crack and when I next used the oven I have smoke coming out of this crack which tells me that there is also movement cracks on the other two layers, this is nothing to worry about but if left would allow a minimal heat loss, therefore providing a new outer clay layer is at least 7cm thick will ensure your oven will retain maximum heat.

I used the puddled clay to fill the crack it, I then used a wooden rod to push as much clay into the cracks cavernous roots that you could not see but we're there hidden between layers, this was to help with minimal heat loss.

Finally a new 7cm thick layer of puddled clay and my fabulous clay oven is a s good as new, now I feel the need for the best ever cooked wood fired pizzas...

LAMB KEBAB SALAD SUPER HEALTHY

WOK ON! 

This is my favourite fabulous way to have a low fat healthy tasty guilt free kebab, one you can have  every week if you want!  Full of good for you fresh ingredients and flavours, I don't feel I have missed out on a take away, and would never go back to one now, this is super fast and easy from wok to plate in under five minutes, total prep/cooking time is under ten minutes.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

6oz lamb (leg or neck fillet)

1 tbsp fesh oregano or 1/2 tsp if dried

Sea salt to taste

Fresh ground black pepper to taste

1 flat tsp coconut oil

1/4 red cabbage finely sliced

1/4 white cabbage finely sliced

1 bunch watercress

2 carrots juillenned

1 onion finely sliced

4 tbsp creme fraiche 

6 mint leaves chopped

4 tbsp grated cucumber 

2 chillies sliced

Prepare all your ingredients first, in a large bowl mix the cabbages, carrot, onion and watercress and pile half in each bowl.  Take the creme fraiche, add the cucumber, mint and mix, drizzle half over the salad.  

Slice the lamb on the diagonal really thin so you have sushi size pieces, season with the salt, pepper and toss with the oregano.  Heat your wok hot, add the coconut oil and then the lamb, stir fry 

for approx two minutes for medium rare, sprinkle over the salad and finish of with the rest of the fresh cucumber and mint creme fraiche and fresh sliced chillies then enjoy.

My geeky good for you bit...

Cucumbers have beneficial properties for kidney, prevents excess uric acid, high in potassium, promotes healthy blood pressure.  Coconut is rich in fibre, vitamin C, E, B1, B5, B6, iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, extremely healthy MCFA, lauric acid, easily digested almost immediately broken in your saliva and gastric juices and less likely to be stored as fat, this means pancreatic fat digesting enzymes are not essential which puts less strai. On you liver, allowing it to work more efficiently.  Anti viral, anti bacterial protects your body from infections and viruses.  Regulates thyroid function, highly nutritious.  Cabbage gives you vitamin K, C, B6, B1, B2, B3, iron, sulphur compounds, glucosinolates sinigrin, manganese, fibre, potassium, folate, copper, choline, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, selenium, iron, pantothenic acid, protein.  A perfect food, detox's organs, special cholesterol lowering, best raw or steamed.  Sinigrin is converted into ally-isothiocyonate (AITC) this compound has unique anti carcogenic preventative properties to the 

bladder and colon, iron, sulphur compounds.  Carrots are carotenoids betacarotenes, vitamin A, K, B6, C, B3, B1, B2, E, biotin, fibre, molybdenum, potassium, manganese, pantothenic acid, phosphorus, folate copper, lowers risk of CVD, eat in abundance, significantly lowers risk risk further, antioxidant, benefits and inhibits growth of disease, prevents oxidative damage inside the body, detox cleaner, promotes healthy liver and kidney function, antibacterial and anti viral, protects capillaries, chest, skin and eyes.  Watercress vitamin A, C, E, thiamin, riboflavin, nicotinic acid, iron, calcium, iodine, purifies blood, gives iodine, packed with essential vitamins and minerals, has a higher amount of nutrients than most vegetables, highest antioxidant, can increase the ability of cells to resist damage to their DNA, helping protect against the cell changes that lead to carcogenic disease, if eaten daily will supply high levels of calcium.  Onions give you vitamin C, B6, B1, folic acid, phenol ices, flavonoids, manganese, copper, anti bacterial, anti carcogenic, oxidant, protects arteries, can increase bone density and connective tissue, cardio benefits, protects heart and blood vessels, anti clotting capacity, helps prevents unwanted clumping together of the blood platelet cells, lowers blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, improves cell membrane function in red blood cells, anti inflammatory.  Chillies eaten in large quantity gives you vitamin C, B1, B6, carotene, potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, capsaicin, manganese, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, anti bacterial, anti carcogenic, analgesic, anti diabetic, reduces LDL cholesterol, vitamin C is a water soluble antioxidant required for the collagen synthesis in the body this helps maintain blood vessels, skin, organs and bones.  Regular consumption helps body protect from scurvy, develop resistance against infectious diseases, boosts immunity and scavenges harmful pro inflammatory free radicals from your body.