To think cooking a roast every weekend is completely unnecessary

[ChristmasAlone]

Stems from a conversation I just had, I'm cooking a roast at the moment and mentioned it was the first one I've cooked this year. I love a roast, but just think cooking one every weekend (I know it's Monday) just feels completely unnecessary and takes away from its beauty if you're having every Sunday.

The other key is getting everyone to help. My lot love their roasts so they will help on Sundays , not so much sadly on other days or with general cleaning though . And it does makes Monday night very easy as you can have leftover meat with veg or salad. So it saves on time and oven use.

We often do a udon noodle dish with greens and spring onions on Mondays with tiny chunks of leftover roast pork and stock from the day before. Takes about 10 minutes from start to finish. Or cold beef and salad with horseradish dressing takes 5 minutes to prepare. Or cold lamb (not my favourite) is good in a biryani type rice dish or with ratatouille or in shepherds pie. Cold duck is almost better than the just roasted version and is lovely shredded in pancakes with plum sauce and cucumber, spring onions etc . Again, planning makes it easy. And you only need a tiny bit of leftover meat, we have quite small roasts nowadays and up the veg content. A leg of lamb or a cut of beef is shockingly expensive so it's better if you can stretch it out.

Does anyone here have any good recipes for vegetarian Sunday "roasts"? I would be interested in exploring that for a change every so often.

I'd be quite interested to know how old most of the "weekly roasters" are. I always assumed it was a thing of the older generation having meat and two veg type meals and the weekly roast with songs of praise on in the background.

But people saying they cook them for their younger children makes me think there must be 20-30 somethings doing a weekly roast which is so different to my experience that I'm genuinely surprised.

Forwardroll this roping everyone in so that everyone has their Sunday limited and tied up in the roast ritual is also something I strongly associate with dreary, tense, duty driven 1980s Sundays - mum believed Sundays had to revolve around church and a lunch time roast for everyone - effectively it meant the real weekend only felt like Saturday, as Sunday wasn't free time, it was constrained and revolved around the ritual which tied everyone to the house and church.

@Warrickdaviesasplates I’m 35 and we do one most Sunday’s unless it’s really warm and sunny out.

@LifeinPieces21

I think some people must just be better at cooking roasts than others. My family love mine and ask me to cook them. We also love other food but we do like a proper dinner.

I’ve been told my roasts are very good (always done them for family and friends who rave about them and insist I cook Christmas dinner and if I go to visit). I do it all from scratch too. But it’s not hard to peel veg, mix Yorkshire batter, make a cheese sauce, make gravy in the tray etc. It’s not as much work as many other meals and I have more spicy tastes so would way rather a curry or Thai food etc.

H and dd love them tho, and I think they are nice, just not something I’d get excited about or miss if I never ate one again. I actually prefer the meals I make with the leftovers. I wish my other 2 kids would eat them as it would make life much easier but I end up doing other meals for them too, which is an extra faff.

this roping everyone in so that everyone has their Sunday limited and tied up in the roast ritual

I just don't get why people think roasts are so time consuming. The elapsed time might be 90 mins to 2 hours for the meat but you don't have to stand in front of the oven and watch it cook!
We have ours in the evening, so doesn't constrain our day at all as we would usually be back from any activities late afternoon anyway

I'm a bit puzzled by those people who find it a chore and a waste of a large chunk of their day.
We always eat at 7pm so don't bother starting cooking before 5pm.
I would often spend that amount of time making a lasagne!
One thing I don't do with the roast potatoes is peeling or par boiling.
We give them a 5 minute blast in the microwave, cut them in half or quarters (skin on) and roast with a sprinkle of onion salt and black pepper.

@VestaTilley how did you get into the weekly ritual of it? Did you have them weekly as a child? Do you and your family just love it or is it more of an expectation on you?

I can accept that I'm in a bit of a minority but it is blowing my mind a little how many people still do it. I suppose because I really hate roasts it wouldn't cross my mind to have one at all even though DHs family rave about them.

I do remember my mums dickhead husband insisting on us having roasts sometimes as a child. Mum would be in the kitchen fancying around with it, her husband would be sat watching tv, the horrible meaty smells would be inescapable and once we'd finally been forced to sit down and listen to mums husband stuff his face he'd shout at us for not eating enough or appreciating the effort my mum had gone to in making the horrible meal that nobody but him wanted or liked. Then the kids would have to do the cleaning up as we were lazy and ungrateful. So maybe there's an element of childhood nostalgia that's just lost on me.

Every Sunday without fail and if we do fail we have one on a Monday.

Of course it is unnecessary.

I still do one most weekends though, as it makes 2 meals and is a middle of the table meal that everyone likes. Even the teens whom we only see in passing for the rest of the week will spend a leisurely hour at the table with us if there's a roast on offer.
If they are full enough we may even get a board game or two out of the gathering.
It's just a small family ritual that works for us. It is no more difficult to cook than any other meal with several variants to give everyone something they particularly like, and probably easier as most elements just look after themselves.

Colin - spending two hours sounds a lot of time to me. I’m not interested in cooking. DH is really good but rarely has time. We use places like Cook or do meals like salmon with vegetables and rice or tuna stir fry (things I can buy partly prepared and can’t ruin!).

RockingMyFiftiesNot doing them in the evening is certainly better - our Sundays were more strictly timetabled than our school days with breakfast together at 8:30, 9:30 church and somehow the Holy Roast dominating the day til about 3pm, then endless bickering during cleaning up after it, and compulsory family viewing of a dreary BBC family series at "tea time" when we'd eat lunch leftovers served on bread in front of the TV

I can cook Christmas dinner in two and a half hours so I know it doesn't have to be like that, but the roast every week ritual has dismal associations for me, and I'm sure I'm not the only 70s/ 80s child who wouldn't influct the lunch time roast on their children because of her own memories!

I do tray bakes or pot roasts in winter but wouldn't ever call that A Roast.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

Forwardroll this roping everyone in so that everyone has their Sunday limited and tied up in the roast ritual is also something I strongly associate with dreary, tense, duty driven 1980s Sundays - mum believed Sundays had to revolve around church and a lunch time roast for everyone - effectively it meant the real weekend only felt like Saturday, as Sunday wasn't free time, it was constrained and revolved around the ritual which tied everyone to the house and church.

I was making the opposite point that my teens will willingly help when there's a roast in the offing, rather than at other times. Before lockdown they did a sport they enjoyed on Sunday mornings so it's not as if they were in a press gang or anything. Admittedly it's drearier now we've been in lockdown for a year but that's the same for everyone and hopefully will improve soon.

[quote VestaTilley]@Warrickdaviesasplates I’m 35 and we do one most Sunday’s unless it’s really warm and sunny out.[/quote]
I'm in my 30's too and we have one every week.

I enjoy making it and I have really fond memories of Sunday dinner as a child - so does DH.
DH chips in ( he does most of the cooking during the week) but I really don't see it as a chore.

And who says the roast has to be at lunch time anyway?

Sometimes I use a foil container to cook meat and roasties in. Less washing up as dont have dishwasher. Also got a stack steamer saucepan thing so its easy to wash up. I make a load of yorkshire puddings in one go and freeze them and reheat. Stuffing in a foil container too or make balls on greaseproof on a tray. Doesn't cause much mess really.

spending two hours sounds a lot of time to me

But you don't spend 2 hours cooking - that is elapsed time. I always call a roast my lazy option as it's so much more straightforward than a shepherd's pie or a lasagne and no more hands on time.

We do have meals that are super quick to make eg carbonara, stir fries, steak etc that are probably 15-20 mins from start to finish so obviously a roast takes longer than that, but so do many other dishes.

My DH likes a roast and my DC like a roast. I do one weekly. As PP above, it’s not always the same but yes, we do weekly. Particularly great to sit down all together at least once a week and eat together. Kids are older but still love the weekly tradition

We don't generally have a roast every Sunday but will usually have a nice bit of meat whether it is a roast joint, chicken, BBQ, good steak etc

Lol. A lot if this is very familiar.(1980s kid here) my Ddad was in charge of the roast and he was always in the kitchen by 8.30am peeling spuds and sorting out meat etc. My DM went to church in the morning and then we ate dinner at around 1 or 1.30.

Contrast to now. Sometimes we dont even think about a roast til 5 or 6pm and eat it around 7.30 or 8, unless its pulled pork or slow roast lamb which goes in the oven around lunchtime. (Still eat at similar time though) I cant remember ever cooking a roast for lunchtime? (Apart from xmas)

My husband loves a roast so he cooks one once a week, knowing that I wouldn't bother very often. I enjoy them (and he does a great one) but I don't quite feel they're worth all the washing up and mess! As others say, we change the meat and veg so they're quite different every week.

It's quite a nice ritual to have for the kids every Sunday too. DH usually makes a warm pudding with DS, so we tend to spend longer eating and chatting as a family. That's really important to me.

It basically takes me two hours to prepare and cook a full roast with all the trimmings, but that isn’t two hours of constant attention. It’s pretty much half an hour of prep, then sitting with a glass of wine and the newspaper whilst checking on things every 15 mins or so, with a final 15 minute rush to get everything on the table at the same time. I usually start at 4ish and aim to eat at around 6.

@Warrickdaviesasplates
Yup, I’m 60 and would have thought you’d be right about the age, so am surprised that so many younger people do them too. I grew up with a weekly roast and also went to boarding school so I know the difference between a good one and a shit one! I didn’t do one for 10 years and then not regularly for another 10, but my DH (who’s from Southern Europe) absolutely loves them, so ....

I don’t find it a particular chore. It’s all about the timings and I suppose I’ve done it so many times that I have it down pat. We’ve even been known to go to the pub, pop home to put the potatoes in and back for another pint. We sometimes have friends round, in which case I’ll do most of the prep in the morning as drinking and chatting while trying to cook a roast can be very tricky!

We are in our 40s and do them every week normally at lunch time but in evenings if going out, sometimes have them mid week as well. DS is ASD and its the healthiest meal he will eat and he loves the repitition. We all love them too though harder for DD now she is vegan she really misses the full roast.

Ours take about 2 hours to prepare but that's the roast and a dessert afterwards like homemade crumble and custard. It is a lot of calories but we don't eat much beside it. It's also the cat's favourite meal of the week.

Yeah sounds like a lot of the cook them weekly just do a very generic low quality roast with little to no effort put in

OP, I didn't mean that though. I do one a lot in Autumn/Winter.

I meant that some people are just better at doing a nice roast without it being too time consuming. Also, some posters said that they hated them when they were children. My Mum and Dad can both cook lovely ones so always looked forward to them.

I am howling at 'low quality generic roast with no effort'.

Some people prefer a simple roast, some ramp up the complexity of the side dishes or seasoning. What one person considers to be a lot of effort may be standard effort for another.

OP you started a thread saying that it is unnecessary to do a roast every week, and then follow up with 'anyone doing a roast every week is doing a poor one'. It's just rude. Hilarious, but rude.

But I am hooked....what is your definition of a generic low effort roast: what is the significant difference for you that makes a roast superior but too much effort for every week?