to think that a roast dinner isn't necessarily an expensive meal to cook?

[Granllanog]

Just been chatting to a newish friend, she asked what we were eating today and I said I had cooked a roast chicken dinner........she said she loves a roast but considers it an expensive meal. I asked her what she was having today and she said they were having fresh pizzas from Morrisons (£10).
I told her my roast dinner cost less than that to make!!!

Obviously, if you buy a very expensive cut of meat then the cost will be higher but a roast doesn't have to break the bank surely? Today we had a simple chicken dinner, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, swede, peas, carrots, stuffing and gravy.

Breakdown of today's simple roast
Chicken .........1.4 kg £3.33 (part of a multibuy offer)
Potatoes .......... 30p (taken from a large 7.5 kg bag)
Carrots 25p
Peas (frozen) 30p
swede 45p
parsnips 30p
homemade stuffing 25p onion, fresh herbs, my own breadcrumbs
homemade gravy 10p spoon of flour and some gravy browning

We all have choices to make Avery. My choices are different to yours,

That's not to say I blame people for consuming it, we're all just trying to feed our families. It's just my personal choice to opt for a mostly vegetarian diet as we're poor!

likeacandleinthewind that's fine I haven't criticised anyone else's choices I was just saying what we do as a family. I'm not sure what the point of your post is and why you're directing it towards me.

What about wafer thin ham

I agree - did roast chicken dinner for me & DD yesterday, will do us 2 meals each plus a bit extra - £3.33 for the chicken (small, multi buy), pack of small potatoes reduced at co op the day before - 58p, 3 'wonky' carrots, half a head of broccoli, some frozen peas and half a small pack of stuffing with extra sage, thyme & garlic, then gravy.
For 4 decent meals it's less than £1.50/head - doesn't have to be expensive (although can be depending on the meat, how much you have to spend etc).
But I do enough extra veg etc so the leftovers will do us at lease 1 more meal as bubble & squeak.

@Vanuatu

What about wafer thin ham

What about it? As a way to eat less meat and make it go further?

Our roast on Sunday isn't a cheap meal. I cook a free range joint or bird from the butcher or the freezer. I choose to only eat meat that I know the welfare standard of. I will buy half a lamb or half a pig from a local farmer for £70 and freeze it. The animal is raised free-range and killed either on site or within 15 miles.
Because I am paying £7-10 for a roasting joint, we have meat 3 times a week. The other days I'll do a veggie pasta, veggie curry, rice dish or perhaps some tinned fish. So, no, its not a cheap meal if you choose ethical meat.

@Vanuatu

What about wafer thin ham

Joints - beef, lamb, pork - always cook and taste better as a bigger joint so are generally better for bigger parties, or go for a cheaper cut and cook slower and it can go further.
Or, as it's just me and DD often we do a 'roast' with pork chops or a stuffed chicken great between us with a home made pig in blanket - still a reasonably priced meal considering the nutritional value of the veg etc plus versatility of leftovers

We are meat eaters( apart from dd1 who is veggie) but I havent bought a supermarket chicken in years after watching a programme about gow they were reared. I have also lived on the breadline when the dcs were young so understand in a battle between budget and principles, budget means the children get fed! We now try to eat more veggie meals and are probably about 50/50 meat dishes and vegetarian. Last night was beef casserole,today pepper/spinach and halloumi wraps, tomorrow lentil curry. Cant see dh and ds giving up meat completely but we have definitely reduced consumption.

@Comedycook

I don't buy ham - it's too expensive and it's processed and unhealthy. I'd rather make sandwiches from chicken left over from a roast.

Decent ham is expensive. I've started cooking a gammon joint and using the leftovers as ham instead. Works out much cheaper

We do that sometimes too. Dc love gammon but the joint equivalent to the cost of a supermarket chicken doesn't leave much left whereas the chicken we'll get another meal at least plus sandwiches/salad.

Vert large joint of topside of beef cost me £33 yesterday (local farmshop, very fresh meat, Dp won't have beef from anywhere else, we have tried others but this place produces the best).
Me, DP and Ddog will be eating it all week in dinner and lunches. It's not very often we do a roast on a Sunday as our hobby means we are out usually so it's a treat for us.

[quote Loveshelly]@Eminybob
Wow that an animal lived, died, processed by people and it still only costs 3.33
There is something so fucked up about that.

Yet on my thread where I said food is too cheap everyone disagreed and said it’s too expensive and I’m some rich bitch.

3.33 for a living creature is too cheap IMPO[/quote]
Agree. It's horrible to think it's short miserable life was worth just £3.33

@Comedycook

This - watch a few videos of the condition chickens are kept in and you’ll be horrified. Not just for the welfare of the chickens but also for your own health

I've seen them. Factory farming is unpleasant. But it doesn't keep me up at night

We only eat decently kept free range chicken - which is still not perfect as regards meat production but a lot better than battery. And that’s expensive, but it’s worth it when you think of the impacts on everyone from battery farming, from antibiotic overuse to environmental impact

It's worth it if you can afford it.

Rather than buy a very cheap chicken, I’d prefer something vegetarian - and the rest of your veg / potatoes sound great. Why not have a nut roast instead with it

I massively crave meat if I don't eat it...and my children wouldn't touch a nut roast.

Its only on here that people seem so horrified by the idea of standard supermarket meat. IRL, everyone I know buys it, even my vair middle class friends.

See, we hardly ever eat chicken because we can’t afford to eat decent chicken often. We have chicken for our Christmas dinner, not turkey, it’s that much of a treat for us!

The rest of the time we eat vegetarian food and other cheaper organic meats eg. mince.

You might not think the state of factory animals is important. But cheap chicken can be full of some very dodgy things, including hormones and routine disease. And I for one am extremely worried about the very near future of a world with no functional antibiotics.

I have close friends who are scientists working in antibiotic resistance. If you heard them talk about what life is going to be like very soon without functional antibiotics - little routine surgery, things like strep throat or boil become life-threatening again, cancer treatments like chemotherapy undeliverable - then you’d change your mind on how much it keeps you up at night, I promise you. The main drivers of global antibiotic resistance are in factory and mass production farming, especially battery poultry farming. We could be looking at severely rationing antibiotics within 10-20 years or even sooner. That’s well within the lifetime that I expect I’ll probably develop disease or cancer.

I’m no sentimental vegan, but I do care about mine or my kid’s prospects of not dying early due to preventable infections, like it’s the eighteenth century again.

A roast dinner can be a cheap meal option and sometimes you can be left with a little meat to cover next day lunch or tea. I love a roast had chicken ourselves today. I persobally think all fresh made meals can be cheaper personally than any other bought ready meal options a shephards pie for 4 for example usually for under £10 depending amount of veg in or with it I would say around £8 you make tbh.

It's a reason my DC have packed lunches, usually costs me to give them a sandwich mini peperami, portion of fruit, actimel, mini kinder bar and portion of mini breadsticks around £1.80 (and yes these named brands - cheaper if you do Aldi own brands) rather than the £2.50 for a school diner which usually ended up with my DD choosing plain rice or jacket potato as she didn't like anything and believe me she wasn't/isn't a fussy eater.

And if I'm getting bored of the same stuff I order hello fresh which means no waste and works out around £4 per person per meal which as adhoc is value for money in my opinion.

Gosh, when did they bring in that law saying it was compulsory to buy a whole chicken every week?

Indeed, PP. I have read this thread in fear of discovering such a law - a law I've been breaking for 30+ years.
My username might suggest where I stand on this topic.
There is no entitlement - or obligation - to buy dead chicken to eat.
If you are going to, then please ensure it is worth more than a few pence to the farmer.

I'm quite surprised how many people still do a "Sunday roast". I suppose its traditional but I just sort of drifted away from doing them as the kids got busier and often out doing their own thing. And all the sides some people do! One pp had 6 different veg!! Have others moved away from it...or am I just a lazy mare?

@AveryGoodlay

That's not to say I blame people for consuming it, we're all just trying to feed our families. It's just my personal choice to opt for a mostly vegetarian diet as we're poor!

I don't find vegetarian food especially cheap. I wanted to make a veggie lasagna. Once I added up the cost of a pepper, aubergine and courgettes, it was cheaper for me to buy a tray of supermarket mince

I really rate the wonky veg available these days. I’ve also bought the £1.50 boxes of fruit and veg in the past from Lidl. I don’t shop there a lot but it was nice quality. I am lucky I can afford more expensive fruit and veg and felt a bit guilty buying a £1.50 box because i felt it was depriving someone else of the benefit.

It's very privileged to be able to pay for high welfare meat. Unfortunately too many people don't have a choice because it's either buy the cheap meat or starve.

[quote Loveshelly]@FourteenSixteenTwentyTwo
Everybody has a choice.

We as a country are simply happy to ignore all the problems that eating cheap meat produces.[/quote]
Or we prioritise feeding our family above animal welfare.
Harsh but there it is. My children need to eat and I can't afford organic so whar should I do? By the way even your free range organic chicken is actually being bred to be slaughtered.
We had roast pork for tea and it probably worked out as about £7. Excellent value.

It's not going expensive to cook a roast I agree. And cold meat sarnies for the day after 😋

Agree. It's horrible to think it's short miserable life was worth just £3.33 what price would you put on a chicken's life?

@QuestionableMouse

It's very privileged to be able to pay for high welfare meat. Unfortunately too many people don't have a choice because it's either buy the cheap meat or starve.

I don’t think that’s true - there are plenty of other meats that aren’t battery chicken or processed pork product, which are both particularly bad.

It’s only very very recently that meat has become very cheap. It certainly wasn’t in the past. It’s also more and more easy than it used to be to cook decent vegetarian food or good food that isn’t intensive-farmed-meat heavy. And probably a lot healthier. It isn’t at all privileged to want to eat less meat but better farmed meat.

In terms of privilege, we’re incredibly privileged to live like we do, with modern healthcare and all of the things we take for granted in life. Some of those are in significant jeopardy now because of industries like intensive farming. From the climate crisis to antibiotic resistance to the destabilisation of biodiversity habitats, we are soon going to be a lot less “privileged” if we don’t take some kind of action.

@QuestionableMouse that's bullshit. The choice is not animal cruelty or starvation. Low meat and no meat diets are also available.