Succulent roast chicken

There is nothing more enticing than the smell of a Sunday roast. We are having chicken today, and our cooking method keeps this meat wonderfully moist under all the crispy skin.

We use a stainless steel oval deep pan with a dimpled lid and sit the chicken on the rack inside. We add a few shakes of chicken seasoning, but you could use salt and pepper. Put the usual chopped onion, carrot, celery and leek in the bottom of the pan, with just enough water to cover. Begin by putting the pan on top of the cooker, and bring the water/veg to the boil. This ensures the bottom of the chicken gets heated up. The chicken is roasted with the lid on for 1/2 of the recommended cooking time. Then the lid is removed and the oven turned up to ensure a really crispy finish.

We're having some roast potatoes and a selection of veg. The gravy will be made with the chicken juices (fat removed). I am not sure how many calories there are in this, but if we would imagine no more than 700. I know that might sound a lot to anyone who is trying to lose weight, but we are just being realistic and have had a lighter lunch today to accommodate the roast dinner. We've eaten cake too. Some walking and a bit of gardening has off-set the extra food, although we do get to have our full calorie allowance on the weekend, so I'm sure we are still well within that.

The cheats way of doing this, is just to go to the supermarket and pick up a ready roasted chicken. There are even roast potatoes and stuffing these days. Just have your veg at the ready. You can also buy ready made gravy too! What a wonderful way to eat ready prepared food - it's as close as you would get by doing it yourself from scratch.

Tomorrow is weigh in day - and we'll see what happens then. For now, here is a picture of what we ate (and the chicken was just so moist and tasty):

Now we have had some really good dishes, without holding back on anything, we are more than happy to begin our "good days" of eating again starting tomorrow. The left over chicken will go into making salads and a quick curry.