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?

Do you leave the skins on those onions? They turn your gravy a lovely brown colour

I have onions and garlic tucked under the belly pork. The tray won't get washed to night, I will roast off some mediterranean veg in it tomorrow, I think (it depends what we have in the freezer).

Red meat?

Even my PILs, who are pretty traditional in many ways, have given up in the traditional Sunday lunch. My parents aren't constrained by it either and swap and change.

We rarely have a traditional Sunday lunch. I don't eat meat and a roast is too big for dh and dd on their own to start with.

Only time we have a Sunday roast is if we go out for lunch to eat, go to a friend or family house who may serve one, or sometimes I have cooked one with we've had people round, if I have felt like it. But then we are as likely to have a roast on any other day

Mind we eat together a fair by anyway so don't have that restraint either at home. Most days we eat dinner in the evening together at around 7pm. And we eat together at weekends a lot either in or out of the house, well unless dd has some party/sleepover/meet up

Yes skins on blanche- and today is red meat, your tray bake sound lovely.

I do similar, huge pyrex roasting pan and put in everything on a theme, Italian, or Indian, or Spanish ( my favourite) chicken, onions and new potatoes in first , seasonings then tender veg in later.

I am a meal planner and batch cooker when life doesn't get in the way.
Love to use the leftover chicken for sandwiches for Monday lunch and burritos for a mid week tea.
Today is curry and i am dredging the freezer for any leftover bhajis and samosas from christmas with poppadoms and nans on the side.
I will send DS around the corner to get some chutneys from the curry house

We love a traybake chez hobs
Nice and easy and minimal washing up

NancyPiecrust I'm impressed how you've managed to get through life without ever hearing of a Roast dinner. Unless you live somewhere that is neither Britain or Ireland. Otherwise it'd take a lot of not observing TV and restaurant/pub signs.

I still cannot figure out what occurs during these epic preparations that require all morning or was see as slaving away. A roast is pretty low effort (if you're not the oven).

I recall first time I made Christmas dinner, I felt I simply must have done something wrong due to the lack of hysterics, manic fuss and stress no running around repeatedly saying (in increasing pitch) 'the bird, the bird' or 'the pudding, the pudding' (actually any item included in the meal). But there it was on the table; all cooked and hot with nothing missing.

We normally have Sunday roast on Wednesday as it's the only day that everyone is home for dinner and there is no work/activities on the cards that night. Every other day someone is working odd hours or studying or swimming or something.

But not always. Sometimes I just can't be bothered. It's not the cooking so much as cleaning up the greasy trays afterwards.

We only have a roast on Sunday every few weeks but have to agree with those who say it's a really quick and easy meal to cook. Very little to do. Important thing is getting timings right for meat (specially as we like our beef nice and pink), potatoes and Yorkshires, if serving. Then just microwave veg and make gravy. And v little work next day - just salad ( M and S have a good selection at moment) and maybe small baked pots with cold meat.

Must admit I'm very happy to have main meal on Sunday in evening as usual - it's my DH who's rather 'traditional ' about having it at lunchtime. But we do also go out or, in summer, DS will do a barbecue.

Dead corpse? Well I like my rib of been bloody if that's what you mean...

My DCs love it and when they all come home, it's like Christmas meal with lots of fun and laughter, and I love doing it.

We have a roast most weeks during the colder months and I prep it before we go out to rugby in the morning and set the meat in the oven with the timer to make it come on whilst we are out. Then I get home and stick the roast potatoes and parsnips in and potter for about another hour making the rest of it. The dishwasher is loaded before we go to rugby and it gets reloaded once we have eaten.

I love eating at lunchtime on a sunday because it is done and out of the way then, leaving the afternoon for a snooze before DD2 goes to swimming at 5pm.

I have grown up with a sunday lunch, but Im not a fan of the roast. Never have been. There are lots of other meals Id much rather eat. Lots of people can't seem to understand that.

I fucking love a dead corpse.

I'm having the severed hind lower leg of a lamb, pot roast with cannellini beans and tomatoes tonight. It's possible that the lamb is still hopping about with a crutch.

MakingJudySmile

"I recall first time I made Christmas dinner, I felt I simply must have done something wrong due to the lack of hysterics, manic fuss and stress no running around repeatedly saying (in increasing pitch) 'the bird, the bird' or 'the pudding, the pudding' (actually any item included in the meal). But there it was on the table; all cooked and hot with nothing missing. "

As a foreigner, can absolutely relate to this. To me, a British Christmas dinner (which I enjoy very much) looks just like the kind of roast dinner you might cook on an ordinary weekend when you don't want anything taking too much attention from the housework/socialising/slumping on the sofa. Coming from a country where Christmas dinner involves a whole buffet table of home-cooked hot and cold dishes and is introduced by vigorous dancing, I really struggled to see what the fuss was about.

I never cook a Sunday roast. I hate spending hours cooking and then cleaning up for a meal that gets hoovered up in minutes by my lot and I don't even like a roast dinner very much!! We all eat together but don't have a roast :)

As a ?5 year old we stayed with some people at the weekend and they served chips on Sunday. I genuinely didn't think you were allowed to eat anything other than Sunday lunch on Sundays. My mum still does one every week, and church is a Big Thing in their household.

Unfortunately the church being a big thing, and the requirement to be eating by 1pm, meant that the food was never great (vegetables would be 'parboiled' at breakfast for half an hour, left to stew in warm water for the two hours+ we'd be out, and then finished off later. And if the cooker oven timer failed to work, then it was The End Of The World.

Coming from a country where Christmas dinner involves a whole buffet table of home-cooked hot and cold dishes and is introduced by vigorous dancing, I really struggled to see what the fuss was about.

I agree that the British Christmas dinner is very easy, especially if you're used to more elaborate arrangements. But it's not the food, it's the day and what it means. I imagine people in your home country also get in a bit of a tizz when they want to make everything perfect.

Whilst reading the thread, I remembered that the deeds to my house specify that no washing can be hung out on a sunday! - as an earlier pp said.

I love a bit of bloody beef. That's the only thing I can't just bung in the oven and forget for hours. So we don't have it often.

I've just finished eating a roast beef dinner (roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings, carrots, broccoli, french beans, proper gravy). I timed how long I was actively cooking (as opposed to sitting in a different room while the oven did its thing)...including peeling the vegetables, total time 19 minutes. Most of that was veg prep or gravy making/dishing up.

I don't get how people can spend a whole day fussing and fighting over a lump of dead cow (or pig or sheep or whatever) and veggies.

This year I'm am most certainly now going to introduce Christmas dinner by dancing vigourously. I really like the sound of it. All events were (this is not a British thing mind) made so unenjoyable by the sheer frantic unrealistic expectation of everyone having a idyllic time -by idyllic I mean behaving in the correct manner as psychically dictated by my mum

I still cannot figure out what occurs during these epic preparations that require all morning or was see as slaving away. A roast is pretty low effort (if you're not the oven).

I totally agree! It is one of the easiest meals to cook as it requires no standing and stirring etc. Christmas Diiner is a little more effort for me as I do a larger selection of vegetables and make a couple of sauces from scratch but I certainly don't spend hours in the kitchen when there is wine to drunk

My parents are in their 70's and we would have a roast on a Sunday (usually away at sporting events, but Sunday dinner when not), back when I was growing up. They don't have Sunday dinner now though, they're usually doing something much more interesting now.