Roast dinner veggies advice/recipes please!

[Feelingcrappy2]

I’m fed up of boiling cauliflower and cabbage and chucking a load of packet bought cheese sauce over the top! Equally I’m bored of cauliflower and cabbage.

The best you will get from me are honey roast carrots which aren’t honey roast carrots. They are boiled carrots, drained with a bit on honey squeezed over them.

Not really selling my sunday roast am I!

As you can tell, I’m in desperate need for veg advice.

I like the idea (although never tried it with a roast) of tenderstem broccoli, honey roasted carrots (not my ‘honey roasted’ carrots!) and possibly peas? Minted peas perhaps?

I’d like to switch it up and tart it up. I say no cauli but I LOVE cauliflower cheese (perhaps a cauli/broccoli cheese bake?)…

Looking forward to hearing some ideas!

Fully prepared for herbs, seasoning etc… it’s not that I can’t cook, it’s actually just that my way of cooking a sunday roast has become a habit as i’ve always known it in my family to be cooked that way!

So, steam some broccoli, do proper honey roast carrots (look up a bbc or Delia recipe) and minted peas (easy from frozen, just cook v briefly and add butter and finely chopped mint.

Maybe buy a taste the difference type cauli cheese you can just stick in the oven?

A couple of very easy ones.
Broad beans with diced bacon. Frozen broad beans cooked and added to some finely chopped fried bacon.
A tray of roast veg - you can use parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, peppers whatever you like. Bung on a tray with oil and seasoning and roast in the oven.

I roast carrots and parsnips together - just in hot oil for about 40 minutes with some salt and pepper.

Dp did this last night as we are non-dairy at the moment. Delicious! And leftovers tonight, can't wait. We are going to do it for Christmas day but have a cheese sauce on the side for those who want it.

realfood.tesco.com/recipes/whole-roasted-cauliflower-with-garlic-and-paprika.html

Thank you both. May I also ask.. I usually use veg oil or olive oil in my tray for the roast potatoes but i’ve picked up a tub of ‘beef dripping’, have you any experience using that for roast potatoes? And if so, how much of it do I use?

Roasted/pan friend brussell srpouts with a dash of balsamic vinegar is amazing

Tender stem broccoli, par poil for a 3-4 mins and then a quick toss in hot pan to chargrill it.

Try adding leeks to your cauliflower and cheese, makes such a difference

Roast broccilli, you will never boil it again

Just melt enough in the tin to cover the base as you would with oil.

These carrots are really good, and easy
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/roasted-carrots

Def roast your broccoli and Cauliflower. I’ll never go back to boiling them.

Roasted root veg, so potatoes, beetroot, carrots and parsnips.

Steamed other veg, cauli, brocolli, carrots

Stir fry other veg, onions, peppers, bang in the steamed other veg and once coloured up a bit, add ground pepper, some tabasco, soy sauce and a splash of vinegar to loosen it up a bit, and serve with the roasted veg and whatever 'main' thing you have.

With some gravy and yorkshire puddings of course.

Although this year I've given up doing roast dinners on Sundays and I make veggie all day breakfast instead. Air fryed potato cubes, a few veggie sausages cooked with onions, scrambled egg with cheese and some baked beans, all with toast. Much easier and faster than a roast.

Olive oil and crushed garlic as much as you like in a casserole dish, sprouts, and cauliflower in and roast with the lid on 20 mins and then lid off 15 mins. Can’t give you a temp as I’ve got a shit gas oven that only cooks on 8 🤣

I just pile it all in to the top and stir half way through.

If no vegetarians, add pancetta lardons too. Delicious. I sometimes tip with cheese for the last ten mins too.

Roasted sprouts, cauliflower or broccoli are great (taste much better than boiled or steamed imo). Just toss them in some oil, season and bung them in the oven (turn them once or twice as they cook). I prefer to use bigger sprouts and cut them in half to roast them. Takes around 25 mins give or take, depending on how browned you want them.

Beef dripping or goose fat roast potatoes are great. Just pre heat the oil in the tin so it’s really hot before you add the spuds.

I sometimes add broccoli and carrot to that too. Just had a huge bowl of it for my lunch. Gorgeous.

Always - Buttery Carrot and Swede mash
Broccoli and Cauli cheese made with a mix of cathedral city cheddar, mozzarella and some dijon mustard
roasted carrots and roast potatoes
Although atm Ds1 who is 7 is OBSESSED with buttered, boiled new potatoes and wants those with every meal

My DM always roasted potatoes in around the beef joint, but I just use sunflower oil in a separate roasting dish.

I think I’d try adding a couple of tablespoons of dripping to a roasting pan and see if that’s enough when it’s melted and heated up before adding veg.

Par boil carrots and parsnips at the same time as doing your potatoes then they can all go into the same roasting dish together for roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots. Just make sure you keep the carrots and parsnips quite chunky so they cook at the same time as the roasties. O usually peel them then cut them in half lengthways and that's enough.

They can all be cooked in the same oil (if you use goose fat or beef dripping I do three big tablespoons of it to cover the bottom of the roasting dish and get it really hot in the oven before you put your vegetables in. Toss them around a bit in the fat and roast for 50 mins or so. A drizzle of honey on the carrots and parsnips about halfway through the cooking time.

If you like it, braised red cabbage is really easy to make and you can make a big batch then portion it up and freeze it in tupperware. It microwaves really well from frozen so is an easy vegetable side to heat up for roast dinners.

Then I like some steamed fresh green vegetables as otherwise everything is a bit heavy. Broccoli, Brussel sprouts etc.

Blanch your cauli and broccoli so still v firm but not rock solid (2-3 mins). Put into an oven proof dish so quite tightly packed in. Brush the tops with a beaten egg (sounds daft but helps to make next bit stick). Sprinkle generously with wholemeal bread crumbs and crumbled Stilton. Bake until crisp. A million times better than cauliflower cheese, it also works really well with leeks.