My sister’s cooker went off the other day. She went out and for the first time ever bought one of those soup packets that you can rehydrate with boiling water. I waited until I knew she had proper food again before pot roasting a chicken – just couldn’t have eaten it knowing she only had a soup packet.

But a whole chicken poses problems for someone living alone. After the first night, and sandwiches, what to do? I made soup.

• Ingredients: most of a cooked chicken carcass, including a fair bit of meat/ or one or two chicken pieces. Three carrots, three shallots, one leek, one largish potato, one tomato, a small handful of oatmeal, a vegetable stock cube, a small bunch of parsley, salt and pepper. Butter (optional)

• Alternatives: turnips or swede, sweetcorn, red lentils

• Method: Remove a little good meat from the carcass. Chunk the carrots and tomato, slice the leek and shallots and place in a large, deep pot. Add a little butter, salt, pepper and stir around on a low heat until the onions are starting to melt. Then add the carcass, broken into manageable pieces. Crumble in the stock cube (for cup a soup authenticity) add in the oats, cover with water, bring to the boil, turn right down to a simmer and leave for an hour or more.

After this, mash up the carrots, take out the bones, add in the diced potato and chicken meat and leave to simmer for another 30-60 minutes. Before serving add a handful or two of finely chopped parsley and perhaps some more pepper.