Cooking a roast dinner

I do a roastie most Sundays, but it is knackering and takes me most of Monday to recover.

When my girls left home I told DH, "that's it, No more cooking"!Now that has come back to bite me on the bum, one DD and GS have moved back with us. Already I have started to panic about Christmas dinner. Am going to practice very soon with a Sunday lunch, never tried frozen roast spuds before, are they any good?

jings I find cooking a roast the least knackering of all meals.
Chuck a joint/bird in the oven prepare some veg and do your own thing for 3 hrs until it's time to cook the veg.
DH likes a roast every Sunday, unless its a hot day. Yesterdays was pork with roasties and cabbage.

loopyloo 4 meals from one chicken I wish I could do that.

I pot roasted it so meal:
1 roast and veg
2 Cold chicken, chips, salad
3 stripped meat off carcass half made a curry, added chopped veg left over
4 remaining meat made chicken and mushroom soup and I added a tin of butter beans. Had it with freshly made bread.

Only feeding two of us so large chicken does it

I think frozen roast potatoes are awful, Alima, and homemade are so easy anyway.

Today: roast spare rib of pork, roast potatoes, butternut squash roasted with ginger and maple syrup (with enough left to make soup tomorrow), broccoli roasted with chilli oil and parmesan cheese. The pork will have been roasted on a bed of onions, bay leaves and black peppercorns. While the pork is resting, I'll make gravy by adding red wine to the residue in the pan (including the caramelised onions and the herbs) reducing it then adding stock and reducing that. Maybe adding a dash of Worcester Sauce or redcurrant jelly (or raspberry jam ) or any left over anchovies that might be lurking in the fridge.

I don't find that at all stressful, in fact I find it a restful way to spend my time.

I think a roast is one of the easiest meals to prepare, especially if you cheat a bit with the veg. We often have roasts - stick the meat in the oven and.more or less forget about it for an hour or so. I often do red cabbage with apple in my slow cooker as a side veg, roast potatoes are a doddle and then a green and a yellow veg and voila.

I like the sound of the cabbage finished with cheese, will try that.

I'm not keen on mass produced pub roasts unless you go to a good one they are often "catering roasts" and the poor quality is disguised with lots of gravy. Yuk.

kitty I agree.

We're soon entertaining some friends to a roast, and I'm going to do the butternut you describe, it sounds delicious. Do you cut the ginger in slivers?

We ate out recently and I had parsnips seasoned with nutmeg, divine.

Yes, still a roast here on a Sunday, even when it's just the two of us, slight variation today, gammon in the slow cooker, remainder will be made into pea and ham soup

Today I am doing a roast in the bag duck, (never done one before). With the duck I am doing roast potatoes, spring greens, asparagus and carrots, with mashed potatoes as well. I make my own gravy from the meat juices. I might even make a lemon pudding although DS isn't much of a pudding fan.

In spite of my age and not being able to stand for long I still like cooking and eating. I stuff a couple of boned chicken thighs joints with home made stuffing, wrap in streaky bacon and bake in a pie dish in my mini oven. Roast par boiled potatoes in another pie dish. Steam broccoli and carrots on hob. Gravy is made from chicken granules.

Having cooked a roast dinner every Sunday for close on fifty years now, I can't see anything wrong with letting others do it occasionally now. Or even going out to one of the excellent pubs we have in our area.

So don't teach me to suck eggs ninathenana. I've probably cooked a few more than you. (Only just seen your post)

, No, there certainly isn't anything wrong with letting others cook it. I love a good pub lunch. Never said there was.

I wasn't trying to teach anyone, I wouldn't be that presumptuous.
Just stating that I do it the simple way therefore I don't find it knackering. Be even better if someone else did it

Righto. Took it wrong. Soz. x

I could get four meals from one chicken - just the two of us. I think I did, in fact. Last week. Large M & S chicken. Cooked it sitting on top of a load of veg, as someone posted on GN. Rosequarz I think. Tasted nice but it made the veg and the gravy a bit greasy.

I am actually in the middle of cooking a (late) roast dinner now. So I will buzz off.

If you slosh in some water or stock or wine jingl it isn't greasy, and any fat separates out easily once it's cooked.

I've got a bit of beef in the oven top shelf , a lamb casserole in the bottom and will bung the potatoes/parsnips in in a minute and a syrup sponge pudding in on the bottom shelf in half an hour.
I'm really trying to make better use of the oven being on.

Loopylou - I do that too.
The only roast meal I make is chicken, but cut in pieces. I make stuffing with breadcrumbs lemon and thyme and apple and onion etc, and roll it into balls and roast next to the chicken.
But I cover all with foil, just take the foil off for the last 10 minutes or so to crisp up the skin. There's always some juices to make into gravy.
Too many memories of burnt on fat in my Mum's oven from open roasting.

GK, Butternut Squash with Ginger

Peel, deseed and cut into 3cm chunks. Place on baking sheet and sprinkle with a little salt.

Gently heat some olive oil, or butter, add 3 tsps minced ginger, fresh or from a jar (guess which I use?) and 4 tbsp maple syrup. Pour over the butternut squash and roast until cooked to taste and with the tips singeing.

The recipe says scatter pine nuts over the top but I never do that.

I often do 2 so I have loads left to make gingered butternut squash soup!

I like the sound of parsnip with nutmeg!!

I use a roasting tin with a lid. Stops the grease splashes in the oven and roasts just as well - you don't even have to take the lid off to brown it (unless you want really crispy skin or crackling).

Today I have 6 chicken breasts about to go into the oven in a roastabag with some herbs.
Baby boiled potatoes, mashed carrot and parsnip. Cabbage already steamed, added a little butter and will pop it in the oven as t minute topped with grated cheese.
Made sticky toffee pudding yesterday and will serve it with custard.

Just four of us today, two guests. We usually have 8.

We are having leg of lamb (it was half price due to sell by date in local co-op). It will be an easy meal for me as DH is cooking! More washing up though as he always uses every implement in the kitchrn.

Leg of lamb here also with roast pots and parsnips and creamed leeks, carrots and no pudding. I cannot express enough how impressed I am by the fact that kitty may have a couple of anchovies left in the fridge. Now that is posh.I have never bought an anchovy (and would be stumped as to know what to do with one)

Ann, there is a great Nigella lamb steak recipe that uses some anchovies melted into the sauce which is made with pink martini. Of course, no recipe ever uses the whole tin so I sometimes have half a tin covered in cling film lurking at the back of the fridge. I put them into casseroles, mince things, gravy etc so they are not wasted. The trick with anchovies is not to tell anyone that they are in whatever they are eating or, all of a sudden, the dish is too salty and/or very fishy!

I'm a huge fan of Nigella cook books and have requested the new one for Christmas despite saying that I can't cope with any more cookery books.