One-tin wonders… Not just for Sunday lunch, a good roast can be anything from a fish supper to tasty spiced veg. Simple to prepare (and light on washing up), turn to page 54 of April’s The Simple Things for roast recipe including Sea bass & asparagus with jasmine rice & ginger lime dressing, Roast chicken with fennel, lemon & shallots, and Ras el hanout slow roasted mushrooms.

Spelt with chorizo, sweet potato, red onion & spinach

A hearty, substantial dinner – any leftovers will make for a proper next-day lunchbox. You can use pearl barley as an alternative to spelt if you prefer it.

Serves 4

Prep: 10–15 mins
Cook: 1 hour
150g spelt or pearl barley, rinsed
350g chicken stock
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 21⁄2cm chunks
1 red onion, peeled and quartered
5 cloves of garlic, skin on
225g cooking chorizo, cut into 2cm chunks
1 tbsp olive oil
300g spinach, roughly chopped
Juice of 1 lemon

1 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/ 350F. In a roasting tin, mix together the spelt or pearl barley, chicken stock, sweet potato chunks, red onion and garlic. Rub the chorizo chunks with the olive oil and scatter over the pearl barley mixture.
2 Cover the dish tightly with foil, then transfer to the oven and cook for an hour.
3 Remove the foil and stir in the spinach. Season to taste with the lemon juice, salt and freshly ground black pepper, and serve hot.

Recipes from The Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer (Square Peg).