Pickled Onions

Let me ask a question - does any other country eat pickled onions, or is it a British thing? I can't remember if I ever saw them when I spent some time abroad, but to be honest, although I've always liked them I've only recently become obsessed with them!

If you've never had them, or even heard of them, they're definitely something to try if you like onions. Tart, crunchy and ever so slightly sweet, they go perfectly with a salad, sandwich, cheese or just as a quick snack - popping one straight out of the jar and into your mouth ;)



Pickled Onions

Ingredients:

500ml jar
300g pickling onions (or just tiny onions - these were about 1" diameter at the most)
1 tbsp sugar
White wine vinegar

Method:

1. Sterilise your jar. I just boiled mine along with the lid for about a minute.
2. Prepare onions - cut off the bottoms, and then make a slit in the side and peel off the skin and top layer of onion.
3. Put the tbsp of sugar into your jar, and add just enough boiling water to get all the sugar to dissolve.
4. Add onions to jar.
5. Add vinegar, ensuring that all onions are covered.
6. Store in a cupboard or pantry until ready to eat, leave them for at least two weeks so they can properly pickle themselves, but they will last for ages. My Mum used to always make hers at the beginning of October to eat at Christmas, and they'd last us for months.

Dried Apple Rings

This time of year, apples are generally at their best. At work, we were recently given a massive bag of them. We let the kids do apple bobbing on Halloween, but as we're doing a hamper to raffle off at Christmas time, I said I would bring any apples that were left home to make something for the hamper with.



These are incredibly easy to make and require very little effort! You just have to keep a bit of an eye on them.

What you need:

4 apples
1 lemon or lime

Method:

Wash and core your apples, and remove any bruised bits.



Slice into rings about 3mm in width. They need to be fairly thin, and fairly uniform in size so they dry at an even rate. Put them in a bowl and squeeze over the juice of one lemon or lime, and toss to coat. The lemon/lime stops the apples from going really brown.



String the apple rings, and hang them up to dry. You need somewhere warm but that has a good airflow too. It's important to make sure the apple rings aren't touching.



I put my apple rings over the radiator vent in the kitchen - it's warm but a lot of air circulates as it's close to the back door. Leave them to dry for about a week or so, but remember to just keep an eye on them, make sure they don't slide together.