Chicken And Mediterranean Veg

I'm on holiday! Well, I've been on holiday for a week and now I'm working as an office junior to make money to fund my cookware addiction (I've got my eye on a spice grinder and a good few cookbooks, including Jerusalem (Ottolenghi), ONE (Florence Knight) and Polpo) . . . also a slight shoe addiction . . . clothes in general really. Fortunately for my love of sleep, it's still only a four day week with the bank holiday.

I've just bought the Hairy Bikers' other two dieting cookbooks and have been cooking from them all week with plans for more recipes over the next fortnight. This recipe is inspired by their easy chicken bake (book 2) but I couldn't be bothered to stuff the chicken as it seemed an odd and rather pointless mix (grated courgette, cheddar and sundries tomatoes) and this style of recipe seems to be fairly standard across all recipe books and blogs - I saw another similar recipe on delicious.

How have you been spending your weekend and what are your plans for Easter? I've only just stopped doing chores today, and even now I'm writing this for the blog! This morning I got confused by the clocks changing and woke up early (not sure how that happened) and began sorting my room so that I have some hope of actually fitting the contents of my Manchester flat into the house down here over the summer. After that I poached FIVE eggs to be ready at the same time (using 2 pans) and lost a white in the process so had 4 poached eggs and one poached yolk - very odd. No rest for the wicked was allowed after lunch as I launched straight into making pesto and a couple of curry pastes for the week ahead. Finally an hour off to watch Gilmore Girls, which ended just in time to make the below recipe for supper. Now I'm writing to you all whilst catching up with Kew on a Plate.

Chicken and Mediterranean Veg Recipe

Oven at 200˚ fan

Serves 4

Takes about an hour to cook plus chopping time (10-15 minutes)

You don't have add the pasta and it's very filling if you do, but mum thought we needed it, and the pasta did go very well with all of the veg and chicken. If there's any leftovers you could have it cold for tomorrow's lunch

Ingredients

2 courgettes

2 peppers (red, yellow or orange)

2 red onions

2 sweet potatoes

1tbsp olive oil

4 chicken breasts

12 cherry tomatoes

200g pasta (optional)

Method

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into 3cm chunks before tipping them into a large roasting tin.

Cut the peppers into 3cm pieces and add to the roasting tin.

The onions need to be cut in half and then each half cut into 5 to 6 wedges and added to the tin.

Top and tail the courgettes and then slice on the diagonal to get a wide surface area - make them about 1.5cm thick.

Once all of the vegetables are in the roasting tin, drizzle over the olive oil and season well. Use your hands to toss the vegetables and oil together.

Place the tin in the oven for 20 minutes and then remove, placing the chicken breasts on top and season with pepper. Return to the oven.

After 10 minutes, place the cherry tomatoes around the chicken and leave to cook for a final 15 minutes. Cook the pasta now.

Remove from the oven for a final time and leave to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.