to hate this obsession with Sunday Lunch.

[fckUsundaylunch]

Yes I get that years ago everybody worked long hours and Sunday was the only time people could gather together to eat.
But times have changed.

If I get up on a Sunday and it's a really nice day, rather than spend all morning cooking, we will go out for the day.
We'll have the Sunday lunch on another day during the week..
I don't want my whole day to revolve around a meal.

My DM is always horrified ^But You have to have Sunday Lunch!''
'How can you not have Sunday Lunch?
Me Why?
DM ''Because it's Sunday!''
I think she would have a hear attack if I told her that sometimes we live really dangerously and go a whole month without seeing a roast potato

Before the food police have a go, I cook really healthy meals, and we sit down to eat as a family on a regular basis,
just not always on a Sunday.

Anybody else have older parents who think this way?

What did you do for 3 hours? You must have much higher standards than I do and sorry that sounds a bad experience!
I reckon it takes me 15 mins - I put the leg of lamb in a roasting pan with a bit of rosemary tucked under it if I have any and quickly cut an onion in quarters to put round it and a dash of olive oil on it. Then roast. At some stage I peel and boil potatoes before adding them to roast too, but I'm baffled as for me that's it. I now have a self basting tin (ie with a lid) that had rave reviews on Argos and it is even better and keeps the oven cleaner!

Unless we have friends we just have the meat juices as I find the idea of making gravy more daunting than it should be, Even if it takes minutes.

The horridness of being forced to eat slices of meat (I wanted to be veggie from age 5), congealed wobbly gravy, sproutish steamed-up windows, the smell of baked onions giving me a stomach ache, the strained smiles for grandparents I didn't like, the simmering tension between my parents, the sound of Karen Carpenter's sad voice on the record player, the smell of polish from the 'best' table, the rain at the window, the unfinished physics homework sneering at me from my schoolbag... Ughghgh sad

You were lucky - we weren't allowed to have music on.

AND, every week my Dad would give a smug smile and say 'well cooked mother' and she would smile smugly bac and say 'well cooked father'

(They said their real names, but it may as well have been mother and father)'

Then there was the week when my sister discovered half a caterpillar in her curly kale ...

3 hours, seriously Bogey ? I'm really unsure as to HOW I'd occupy three hours cooking a lunch.

I mean, last Wednesday I did spend two hours cooking but in that time I prepared three days' worth of breakfasts and lunches, made a cake and dinner...and washed up by hand (the things that couldn't go in the dishwasher). I cannot see how making a roast can take 3 hours actual cooking...as I put above, making Sunday's roast beef took me less than 20 minutes actual cooking time (half of which was vegetable preparation while the oven was warming up and half of which was dishing up and making proper gravy. In between there was 15 seconds or so of activity, 4 times, to baste potatoes or pop vegetables on etc).

Oh, and if ever I hear Barbra Streisand, I am transported back to Sundays at my dad and step-monster's step mum's and overcooked beef and soggy vegetables.

OP it seems it's what the roast dinner represents rather than the food itself. My mum used to make Christmas Day very unpleasant because of what she thought the day should be and how we should all behave. She was a lovely woman but Christmas transformed her into a bad fairy. On Boxing Day it was like someone had waved a magic wand at midnight and given us our mum back.

Pancakes do you not have vegetables

3 hours because I was cooking for 8 and thats means a fair amount of veg prep and I find carving a leg of lamb takes ages, either because I am crap at it or because it is an arsehole, or possibly a bit of both!

If someone else did the prep then sure, bung it in the oven, switch the steamer on, but they dont so.......

We are very rarely at home on Sundays, so the traditional Sunday Lunch only exists if we visit grand-parents in the winter. My kids spend all week seating at school more or less willingly , I couldn't force them to sit still whilst I am cooking and whilst we are eating. Life is too short, they eat home-made meals every single day, of the week, Sundays are family days out, when they are allowed pizza or fish and chips or whatever they like for lunch.

bogeyface there must be a way to cut that 3 hours down. No wonder it seems a faff!

Never ever bother with a roast unless we are in the pub eating it!

Typically our Sunday evening meal is something spicy, and vegetarian because that's all we have left before shop arrives on a Monday! We have veggie burritos, dhal, sometimes I make a pie.

9 times out of 10 we are out for lunch so we have something from a coffee shop.

Sunday's are for taking it easy and doing very little

There is a way....dont cook for 8 and dont do roast lamb! Chicken carved in a few minutes for example. But the veg prep takes as long as it takes which is why we dont have roast dinners very often.

All these posters who say how long veg prep takes, do you never just buy fresh veg ready to microwave from Waitrose or M and S as I usually do?

Or perhaps that doesn't count as 'proper' cooking?

I quite enjoy a Sunday roast, when someone else cooks it. Having to cook it myself means we have it about three times a year.

plyhymnia- but then you get tasteless steamed unflavoured veg.

I like my veg to be more interesting than that, so carrots cooked in orange juice with coriander, honey glazed parsnips, green beans wrapped with pancetta, broccolli stir fried with garlic and almonds etc.

I don't want some microwaved bag of random veg microwaved in a bag dribbling water as you cut it open.

I don't buy microwave prepared veg but I do batch cook some things, for example braised red cabbage and carrot mash. Which means for a Sunday Roast I for 8 people I'd do a big pan of potatoes (10-15 mins) a head of cauli (2 mins) 6 carrots (2 minutes) broccoli (2 minutes) plus some red cabbage from the freezer and maybe a leek pudding or yorkies, depending on the meat. Mixing up batter 3 mins.
peel spuds first then get them going while the other prep gets done. If I'm poaching leeks for cheese sauce I'd do them now too.
By the time the meat's been in for 30 mins and it's time to turn it down the veg is all prepped... If you're having chicken the roast potatoes can go in now and walk away for 30 minutes, otherwise walk away now for 30 minutes then pop back to put spuds in.

My mum used to make Christmas Day very unpleasant because of what she thought the day should be and how we should all behave.

I think you might be my sister! Christmas was a headache, well most events were because of this but Christmas Day was by far the worst of them.

I think DH is making a roast today - I'll see how he coped when I get in from work later.

stealth we just had a big bowl of herb salad as was a hot day. And I quite like it with a roast. Though last week we had carrots (raw as the DC prefer it) and steamed cabbage which is quick too

All these posters who say how long veg prep takes, do you never just buy fresh veg ready to microwave from Waitrose or M and S as I usually do?

For 8 people?! The cost would be absolutely ridiculous, and thats not taking into account that on the odd occasion I have used it for just H and me when the kids have been away, its been tasteless with a weird texture.

And as Pearly said, all you get is basic steamed veg. I prefer a choice of different veg served in different ways. With the lamb we had, amongst other veg, sauteed leeks in a cream sauce and it was delicious.

My mum is horribly shocked that we don't make a big faff out of Christmas. We get up and have a lazy indulgent breakfast, then DH and I get the turkey in the oven. Then presents/drink/movies/games until the turkey is nearly done. At that point there is some veg. prep. etc.

Then we sit down to eat it when it's ready - usually around 4 or 5 pm.

My parents HAVE to have roast lunch at 1:00 exactly (5 past gets my dad all super anxious and breathing funny because lunch is late).

My mum is always so shocked and judgey that I have time to skype her on Christmas day because we're having a relaxed at home day enjoying ourselves. She apparently has no problem with DH having a relaxed day, it is just me who should be stressed and overworked.

If DH wants honey glazed parsnips, he knows where the kitchen is.

I never buy pre prepared veg. It takes minutes to chop up a carrot. Plus it's expensive.

Polyhymnia, we get whole veg from either a market or one of the local shops (which gets the veg from a local farm). I hate washing spuds so dh does them, dd enjoys peeling them so she does that, even though I prefer them with skin on (no one else does). Veg still take time to prep, and the more people you're feeding, the longer it takes.

We could buy prepared veg from the supermarket, but it's much more expensive and it's really pretty tastless and disappointing; but if we're knackered and having shit for supper we might as well have shit veg too, so sometimes we do.

Bogey, are your children too young to help? I had dd peeling things with the cheese slice from quite a young age. You get lovely twists of courgette and carror and parsnip, broccoli stalk etc with a cheese slice (and much easier to use than a spud peeler too).

The kids do help sometimes if they are here, but they take so long! If I dont want to start them peeling a (whole) bag of spuds at about noon for dinner at 6 its easier to do it myself :o

Do agree that microwaved veg can be a bit dull - though they can always be made more interesting with addition of butter, lemon juice, lardons etc. And I do sometimes eg roast some fennel or casserole red cabbage and apple - which I agree is more delicious.
But my veg are certainly never 'dribbling water'. Yuk. When I do microwave I make sure they're
Properly drained and nice and crisp.