Hemsley + Hemsley's healthy Christmas menu Jasmine studied design at Leeds Metropolitan university before becoming a model, travelling the world (and meeting her boyfriend Nick Hopper 12 years ago in Barbados on a shoot where they had to "act like we were in love, so it seemed rude not to actually fall in love," Hopper, who is the third partner in the Hemsley + Hemsley business, says). Melissa, meanwhile, decided not to go to university and instead worked as a brand manager and later in marketing for pubs and bars, starting at 9am and often not finishing work until 1am. Because I hadn't gone to uni I wanted to really prove myself. Jasmine would ring me up and ask if I was looking after myself," Melissa says. She told me I always needed at least one home-made meal in the fridge, even if it was a cup of bone broth. (Bone broth is, as the girls" fans know, their base ingredient for many soups and stews. "It's especially great at this time of year - a cup of this will do wonders for a hangover," Jasmine says.) Jasmine and Hopper had been teaching themselves about food and nutrition (Jasmine is an impressive well of information) and, in breaks between modelling, Jasmine started teaching friends how to cook. Five years ago she began taking on clients - "People who just wanted me to fill up their fridge with healthy, home-cooked dishes" - and asked Melissa to leave her job and join her. The Hemsleys' Christmas menu is designed to be as fuss-free as possible, leaving plenty of time for other preparations. PHOTO: Simon Brown At the heart of their food philosophy is that saturated fat is good and provenance is important. "At Christmas a big roast is what you do, but at all other times of the year we go to the butcher and get cheaper cuts, like oxtail or beef shin," Melissa says. They love the London butcher the Ginger Pig and the Devon-based Wild Beef Company, which sells at Borough and Broadway markets in London. As well as buying cheaper cuts of meat, they bulk-buy - for instance they get 1kg sacks of ground almonds delivered from Infinity Foods in Brighton. "You can freeze them," Jasmine says. Three years ago they started a blog and approached Vogue with the idea of also contributing to its website. "Basically Mel made it happen," Jasmine says. She's incredible like that. The cookbook happened quickly too: after securing a deal with Ebury they submitted 250 recipes last January ("We were only asked for 100, but we couldn't choose") and it was out in June (featuring 165 dishes). It instantly became a bestseller, outstripping Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry. Their recipes are easy to follow and easy to fit into a hectic lifestyle. "We designed them for urban living," Melissa says. The response to it has been "overwhelming," she continues. It's as if everyone was waiting for an easy way to cook healthy food. Jasmine began her career as a model, featuring in campaigns for Marks & Spencer and The Body Shop, as well commercials for Mercedes. Life has speeded up even faster in the past few months. As well as their private clients - they still have about eight, for whom they are busy making Christmas hampers filled with such things as goji-berry marmalade and salted apricot caramels - they are working on their next book. "It seems people particularly like the recipes using up leftovers, so we want to do more of those," Melissa says. The most popular is one which uses up leftovers from roast chicken in a Vietnamese-inspired salad. If there are any leftover brussels today, Melissa says, they will make a perfect breakfast, fried in coconut oil; and the duck carcase will be boiled down into a bone broth. "Usually we cook a big stew on Christmas Eve so we can feed whoever pops in, and we will have that again on Boxing Day," she explains. It always tastes better. The Art of Eating Well (Ebury, £25) is available for £22.50 plus £1.95 p&p from Telegraph Books (0844- 871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk)