Saturday was The Farmer’s Market in New Ferry and Sunday was Mother’s Day so the two came together with me roasting a couple of chickens for a late Sunday lunch that had been picked up at The Farmer’s Market. Along with the chicken I bought a sack of potatoes and a couple of bags of dirty carrots. Why do carrots taste so much better if they have a good covering of black soil still clinging to them.

Before roasting the chicken I made some spiced root vegetable cakes from Persiana. Three potatoes cooked in their skin and allowed to cool grated into a bowl together with a grated beetroot, parsnip and two carrots and then mixed with some chopped spring onions, ground cumin and turmeric and then bound with a couple of eggs and a spoonful of flour.

The chickens were smeared with olive oil, crushed garlic, lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper and were then thrown into the hot oven for just over an hour. In the meantime potatoes were peeled and boiled, tossed in oil and put in the oven along with the chicken.

Twenty minutes before we were ready to eat the chicken came out of the oven, covered with some foil and left to rest. The oven was then turned up to finish roasting the potatoes and a vast Yorkshire Pudding was made.

The carrots were boiled with honey and cumin and for added excitement I cooked a couple of purple carrots as well.

The root vegetable cakes were fried and eventually we were ready to eat.

The purple carrots were a talking point although the tasted much the same as the orange ones!

I manage to lay the table for 12 forgetting that we were missing one child. A pity. She would have enjoyed the Yorkshire Pudding.