As much as I love to cook, week night suppers don’t inspire me. The everyday cooking often feels like a chore, trying to find priority on an already unplayable to-do list. Not to mention the planning and shopping required. I do like to start the week with a bit of a fresh vegetable and general grocery shop, and I find it helps if you have a vague idea of what the 5 meals that week might be.

If you rotate meals in a 5- 7 day cycle, eg. roast chicken, mince, fish, vegetarian, chops/steak, you can change those up every week with a variation on the roast chicken, as an example. Perhaps regular roast chicken with potatoes, then Spanish style roast chicken with paprika and delicious chorizo, and then a pot roast chicken!

This pot roast chicken is a favourite in my family and I love it because I can put it in the oven and not look at it again until dinner time.

Here’s what goes in:

A whole chicken

3 onions or leeks (or a bit of each)

Carrots

Potatoes (use as many as you need)

A little olive oil

Salt and chicken seasoning

How to do it

Before you begin, you will need an ovenproof pot with a lid. I get best results using a Le Creuset, so cast iron is great, but you can use Pyrex, corningware or any other.

Slice the onion and, or leeks, into thick slices and lay them on the bottom of the pot with a few good lugs of olive oil. Place the chicken on top of the onion and season the chicken generously. Place this in the oven, warmed to 180*, and allow the chicken to brown and crisp up a bit. Maybe 20 minutes.

While this is on the go, peel your potatoes and carrots, or just wash them if this is your preference, and cut them into chunky quarters. You can add them to the pot, scattering them around really, once your chicken has browned. Drizzle a bit more olive oil over the veggies and season them with salt.

Now lid on, place this in the oven and turn the temperature down to 160*. You can leave this to cook for 2 hours, and you’ll have a beautiful dinner ready when you return from errands or school lifts. I may have lied when I said you didn’t have to look at it at all during this time- it may benefit from a bit of a stir around the chicken so the vegetables don’t stick, and near the end of the cooking time, you can add something green like broccoli or beans – but please don’t cook these for 2 hours!! None of that is essential though- enjoy this one pot wonder!