This week’s menu starts with strawberries. I know that they are a summer thing and autumn seems to think it’s got an inalienable right to be here just because it’s October, but I love them in a salad and there are plenty of delicious ones around.   It then moves on to a lot of roast things – chicken, peppers, cauliflower – and adds some lentils. Roasting things might sound the last thing you should do if you want to lose weight, but lots of low-calorie-dense things are even more delicious when roasted, and you need remarkably little oil to make it happen. You can add a green salad or some green beans if you don’t have enough chlorophyll in your life.\

Nobody does a simple roast chicken better than Marcella Hazan – her stick a lemon in it and turn it upside down method is a work of genius – produces a perfectly cooked, succulent, crispy-skinned bird every time.  So long as I remember to put the timer on. And i particularly love the lentils with roast cauliflower and tahini – I might say that dressings are often unnecessary, but I'm currently making an exception for tahini dressing made with yogurt and balsamic – as I'm mildly obsessed.  

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Radicchio Salad with Strawberries, Black Olives, and Ricotta

Marcella Hazan's Lemon-Roast Chicken

Roast Cauliflower with Beluga Lentils and Tahini Dressing

Roast Red Peppers

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Diva Notes

Balsamic Vinegar

For many years I used whatever balsamic vinegar I could find that wasn’t too expensive.  A chance encounter with a bottle of Due Vittorie made me see the error of my ways: it’s like drinking a very cheap bottle of wine – fine if you want to get drunk but that’s about it.  And besides, I don’t use balsamic to get drunk. I now buy the best I can find, and call it my one luxury.

For a full list of my one luxuries, please click.

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