A Sunny Sunday Roast

Every Sunday without fail Pete suggests we should have a 'ROAST'. A very manly request, that takes them back to the feral carnivorous stages of wanting MEAT and two veg. Anyway don't know if you noticed but this weekend was a bit of a scortcher and even though saturday had all the glory Sunday was still rather hot day. so the thought of having a heavy hot roast dinner wasn't really very appertising.

As my mother has always said to me ' compromise, compromise, compromise' and my father says 'Don't see a problem, See a solution'. Wise words don't you think! So knowing that a salad would not to do I thought we should just combine the two. Nice and easy.

So here is what I made: Whole chicken baked with rosemary & garlic - A great recipe from AntonioCarluccio's simple cooking book.

Served with a simple salad and also a spicy puy lentil, bean, broccoli salad. Ooo will be doing that puy lentil salad again it was lush!

SPICY PUY LENTIL BEAN SALAD

• 100g Puy lentils
• 500ml hot vegetable stock
• 100g broccoli
• 70g frozen soya beans , thawed
• 70g sugarsnap peas
• 1 red chilli , deseeded and sliced

FOR THE DRESSING

• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• juice 1 lemon
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 40ml reduced-salt soy sauce
• 3cm piece root giner, finely grated
• 1 tbsp clear honey  

1. Boil lentils in stock until just cooked, about 15 mins. Drain, then tip into a large bowl. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil, throw in the broccoli for 1 min, add the beans and peas for 1 min more. Drain, then cool under cold water. Pat dry, then add to the bowl with the lentils.
2. Mix together the dressing ingredients with some seasoning. Pour over the lentils and veg, then mix in well with the chopped chilli. Pile onto a serving platter or divide between 4 plates and serve. 

And then to finish off individual rhubarb, apple & raspberry crumble served with orange creme fraiche. Hmm maybe I ended up making a pretty big meal anyway!? Rhubarb is ace!