Healthy Roast Dinner (serves 6)

Ingredients

• 1 lemon
• A couple of sprigs of rosemary, chopped
• A couple of sprigs of thyme, chopped
• 6-8 cloves of garlic
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil
• 1.8-2kg chicken
• 300g new potatoes
• ½ butternut squash
• 2 red onions, quartered
• 250ml white wine

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.  Finely grate the zest from the lemon and mix in a bowl with the herbs, 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped, and some salt and pepper.  Add a teaspoon of olive oil and rub the mixture between the skin and the chicken breast.  You basically pull the skin up from the chicken breast, keeping it attached.  You then stick your fingers up between the skin and the meat and rub the mixture in.  Finally, halve the lemon and pop inside the chicken cavity.  Put the chicken in a roasting tray and cook for 20 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 190 degrees Celsius and continue roasting for another 50 minutes.  Place the potatoes, squash, red onion and remaining garlic cloves in a separate roasting tray and sprinkle with a little olive oil and sea salt.  The vegetables need to go in for the last hour.  When the time is up, put the chicken and vegetables onto a plate, cover and rest for 10 minutes.  Put the tray onto the heat and add the wine.  Season and let bubble away for a couple of minutes, stirring and making sure that you get all the chicken residue from the bottom of the pan.  Serve the roast with French beans or broccoli stir fried with chilli and garlic.

Chocolate Truffles (makes 24)

Ingredients

• 200g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids is good)
• 6 tablespoons strong black coffee (such as espresso)
• 2 tablespoons clear honey
• Cocoa powder to dust

Method

Melt your chocolate gently in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water before removing it and setting aside.  At this stage, it should appear like a liquid pool of chocolate.  Gently (it’s always best to be gentle with this most delicate friend) pour in the coffee and, using a spatula, give it a slow turn of the bowl until the consistency thickens.  The texture of the chocolate will start to seize and thicken almost instantly.  Add the honey, a tablespoon at a time, slowly waltzing the chocolate around the bowl until you get a highly glossy lick of chocolate.  The whole process will not take more than a couple of minutes.  Chill the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes or until the truffle mixture has returned to a nearly solid form.  Prepare a clean surface on which to roll out the truffles and sieve 3 generous tablespoons of cocoa powder onto it.  Scrape out a teaspoonful of the mixture into the palm of your hand and roll into a marble-sized ball, then roll this through the cocoa powder until fully coated and pop into a bowl jar.  Repeat the process until all the mixture is used up and store the little marbles of wonder in the fridge.