Meatloaf is one of the absolute favourites of the Mambeno home, and this recipe uses chicken mince with plenty of parsley. The meatloaf gives off a load of juices, which make a brilliant sauce. This recipe uses roast potatoes and carrots on the side. If you have fresh beets in the house, these are great too. Enjoy!

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees convection. Peel potatoes and carrots and cut into bite-sized slices. Coat with oil and seasoning in an ovensafe tray. Pop the tray in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes, until the veggies are crisp. Remember to turn them.

2. Finely chop onion, garlic and rinsed parsley in a mini chopper or food processor. Mix with the chicken mince, egg, creme fraiche, plain flour, salt and pepper. Mix everything well, until you've got a firm farce. Add a bit more flour, if the farce is too moist. If you're unsure of the seasoning, you can cook a little test-meatball on a pan to check.

3. Oil an ovensafe tray with some olive oil and shape an oblong meatloaf from the farce in the tray. Top the meatloaf with bacon slices, so it covers all of the meat. If needed, you can halve the slices or tuck the ends of the bacon under the loaf. Pop the tray into the oven with the root veg and cook for about 40 minutes, until the bacon is golden and the farce cooked through.

4. Snap off the bottom bit of the asparagus and bin it. Chop the top bit into smaller chunks. Rinse the lettuce and dice the watermelon. Toss melon and asparagus with the lettuce, and whip up a quick dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and honey - seasoned with salt and pepper.

5. Drain the cooking juices from the tray into a pot. Bring to the boil and add crumbled chicken stock. Add single cream and season with salt and pepper, and optionally a bit of lemon and honey. If the sauce is too thin, thicken it with some corn flour stirred out in a mug of water. Enjoy!

Tip

This recipe makes for a good-sized load, so if you're a few extra mouths at the table, there'll still be plenty for everyone. Otherwise, you can easily save the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. If you have pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, almonds or sunflower seeds knocking about, lightly roast them on a pan and use them as topping on the salad.