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.

I think that in the UK - a country famous for only having come up with one edible meal in it's entire history - fish and chips - people eat disgusting food and have a weird obsession with having the most disgusting of their disgusting food every single week, probably because that fits very nicely with man getting his proper reward from his woman for doing all the hard work all week.

What? I love and cook many European dishes but the British have some great traditional dishes. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with horseradish or mustard is to die for. Roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, divine! A proper English breakfast. Great sweet dishes like Sussex pond pudding and lemon posset. Gammon ham and parsley sauce with Jersey royals fresh out of the ground. Wild salmon with dill or purslane. Fruit crumbles. Strawberries and cream. Christmas dinner. High tea. Pork pies and scotch eggs. Cullen skink. Venison with Cumberland sauce. A wide variety of game and sausages in fact. The new season's asparagus and rhubarb. Gooseberry fool. It's all in the cooking.

"Pan for par boiling - gets a quick rinse for greens and then washed ready for custard."

Custard in a roast?! Like that Friends episode with the beef-trifle? 😂

We have a roast most weekends. There's only 2 of us and it's fairly faff-free.

I don't understand why people think they are such a faff to cook. They're no more time consuming than any meal cooked from scratch. I find a roast is actually really easy as the timings are simple to follow and you can get on with other things whilst it's in the oven.

Once a year on Christmas Day is quite enough thank you.

My kids are little and thus a bit picky and honestly we bloody love a roast because they both eat the lot, so we do one every single week. Don't consider it a lot of work really, bung it in the oven turn it on bam.

Well you sound weird @JediGnot.

By the way DH always cooks the roast in this house

I LOVE a roast dinner, especially my mother in laws but I hate cooking them so if in cooking, it'll be more like once a month

Ah! We do experimental cooking, or anything Mexican, on Saturdays.

Yesterday was Lesser Loaded Nachos, homemade salsas and guacamole. Mexican street food style is our lazy go to Saturday meal.

Next weekend I'm looking at something slow cooked and Persian. I look forward to shopping for the spices. All of mine need replacing and all the little shops and market stalls are back open again.

Weird how we make ourselves our own little traditions, isn't it? 😊

One of my lockdown highlights was a delivered roast dinner.

I’ll do one maybe every other week and drinking wine while it cooks and then sitting down as a family is bliss

We have one most Sundays and it's easy to cook,everyone eats it and it's one meal a week I don't have to think too much about! Vary the meat and veg, always roasties and Yorkies and only day I also make a pudding

I do one every weekend. It's not much of a faff - bung chicken/beef/lamb in, do some paxo, air fry roast potatoes and steam some veg. All with instant Bisto.
It's not the same roast I do for Christmas by any means but still tasty.

DH or DS 15 cook the rest of the week and they make a lot more faffy stuff than a roast.

Maybe some people aren’t very good at cooking roasts if they only have them once a year. You can make so many options with sides and what meat and how you flavour the meat, they are not the same meal each time

He loves a plate of Yorkshire’s, roasties, veg and gravy so sometimes we have one twice a week

My son is 30 and for the last 15 years he’s eaten a roast for his dinner everyday except Friday when he has a pizza. He rotates between chicken, lamb chops and steak all with carrots, broccoli and roast potatoes.

I’m forever thankful that medication he started for something major also improved his severe sensory issues and he could stomach the smell of new food items.

Prior to the meds his eating had been a whole different story altogether.

I like an occasional roast. But only really cook one at Christmas. I just can’t be arsed with how much work it is, and it’s so fatty and calorific and it’s just too much food so I never feel great afterwards.

We’ve only cooked one regularly since lockdown. Before we used to go to a pub once or twice a month to have one. During lockdown it just gives my partner something to do on a Sunday afternoon!

Oh I do love a roast and it's one meal I know we'll all eat!

I find it quite easy as I shove a joint in the oven, roast the potatoes and some root veg - carrots/ parsnips etc etc, then do the veg in a multi level steamer.

Use the meat juices to make the gravy and job done. 👍🏼

We probably have three a month.

DH comes from a family where they all got together on a Sunday and took it in turns to cook. He felt that we should start the same thing with our DDs and their respective families, and for 3 weeks in a row earlier this year, I dutifully stood and cooked a roast for 15, then cleared it away again while they all sat chatting round the fire drinking tea.

The 4th week, I told him to fuck off.

We haven't had a roast since. I'm put off for life.

There’s something irritating about declaring doing a roast with ‘all the trimmings’. And I don’t know what it is.

*I like a roast but don’t want one every week, it would get boring.
*
But not all roasts are the same - we rotate the meat (pork, beef, lamb, chicken - although chicken more often) and have different veg. Always have roast potatoes, never get bored of those, our family would eat them every night..

That said, there's nothing wrong with having one every week or not having one - each family to its own.

We always buy a bigger joint/bird than needed as it reduces effort for another meal in the week eg Shepherd's pie/cottage pie/chicken wraps.

Very hot days we will barbecue on a Sunday or maybe shove a chicken in the oven and serve with salad

Turkey we only have at Christmas, possibly Easter too .Then we really push the boat out with sides and veg so it feels very different to the weekly roast.

Pub lunch! A fabulous Sunday roast and no washing up.

@PegPeople

This is exactly how I feel I love roasts, but with all the faff and having it every weekend takes that treat feeling away.

Am glad to see others feel the same way. I also don't understand why some people I know are so set in their ways that a roast is something that can only ever happen on a Sunday.

Because we cook them so infrequently they can be eaten on any day in our house, if we happen to fancy one on a Wednesday then there is nothing stopping us eating it on a Wednesday.

I think the roast dinner, often eaten at lunchtime, might have its origins in Sunday being the only day a lot of people had off work; thus they had the time to prepare it and eat at a leisurely pace. I like a roast, it saves having to think of something else to eat 😂

I’m in the most weeks group, I think it’s an easy meal and I parboil the potatoes and parsnips, steam cauliflower or leeks over them then reuse the pan for carrots and peas.
Two trays in the oven and a dish for the cauliflower cheese or cheesy leeks and one for the stuffing.

I love leftover roast dinner the next day as well.

We all love roast dinners (including the cat) and have them every Sunday - never get bored of a roast dinner. I'm lucky that DH cooks them.

Totally unnecessary. Too much work, grease and saucepans for something that isn't that nice.

There’s something irritating about declaring doing a roast with ‘all the trimmings’. And I don’t know what it is
It's a bit old fashioned but I like it.