A traditional Roast On A Sunday

[Middicat]

I cannot lie I love love love a traditional roast on a Sunday I look forward to it all day. My husband on the other hand is saying it is not the 1950s anymore and it is old hat to want this and he reckons very few people actually have a roast at home on a Sunday each week.

Am I being unreasonable to have this one meal I really enjoy each week. Am I alone?

I would say that his argument also involves the fact that as we have young children he usually ends up cooking most of it and he says it is not worth all the effort!!!! I disagree - would also like to add we usually have what he likes on any given day of the rest of the week.

My sis was visiting this weekend and offered to cook a roast for us all at mums. Roast lamb, carrots, parsnips, roasties, Yorkshires and gravy, followed by apple crumble and cream. All bloody delicious but just too much food for one meal. I didnt eat a vast amount but still feel as if I have a food baby!! Couldnt do that every week!

@Hellocatshome

no need to cook yorkshires with chicken

There is ALWAYS a need to cook Yorkshires!

no, they need beef gravy!

@Babdoc

How is a roast “a faff”? Am I missing something here? I just stick it in the oven and leave it to roast itself. Are other people standing there stirring it?! When the family are up for Easter, we stick a whole leg of lamb in the oven after church and go out for a walk round the loch while it cooks. Christmas ditto, but with a turkey. It is way simpler than grinding ten different spices and chopping meat and veg for a curry, then standing there frying it and making a fiddly sauce etc. Or making pastry for a pie. It’s probably the least faffy meal I ever make!

What about the roast potatoes, preheating the fat, turning several times throughout the cook. Cauliflower cheese or cheesy leeks. That takes a while Yorkshire batter to make, chill, cook. Roast parsnips/carrots. Fresh broccoli/cauli/carrots. Then the gravy to make. All at different timings. The meat, agreed, is a no brainer, but the rest? No step may be that difficult, but it's a time consuming meal.

Unless your sides are frozen potatoes, frozen yorkies, and bisto? I can see the ease there I guess?

We have a roast at a weekend, sometimes we're quite edgy and have it on Saturday.

Why doesn't he take the kids out while you cook the roast? win-win

I love a roast.Had one on Thursday.It was lovely.

Not a faff as such but the washing up is awful.

My DH cooks a roast every Sunday no matter what.

It's our favourite meal of the week and more often than not, our adult DC and their girlfriends come too.

We used to have one every week pre children, since having a child it's now once a month because I was getting sick of cooking everything for 2/3 hours only for DS to act the twat at the dinner table at serving time.

Once he's old enough to just sit, eat properly and enjoy it then they'll be back to weekly events. We always had them as kids and I loved them.

I'm with your dh on this one it's very old fashioned. We have a roast once a year at Christmas. I don't think it's fair for him to cook when you're the one who wants it, can't you cook it instead and I'll bet he won't moan about it then!

Love them. It’s our most expensive meal of the week too. Todays joint was £12 and there’s barely enough left for beef and mustard crusty baguettes for lunch tomorrow (for two). There were four of us for dinner today and I started all the prep at 11am and we ate at 3pm. I love the whole radio on, pottering in the kitchen, setting the table nicely, deciding to do an extra veg or another stuffing on top of the usual. I always do a pudding too. It’s tradition for us, a bowl of pasta or sausage and chips feels wrong to us on a Sunday. We do on occasion have a casserole or toad in the hole but usually its meat, potatoes, lots of veg and trimmings.

I'd love a roast if someone else cooked it for me as well!

If you want it, you cook it - it may not be quite as appealing then

Oh, I miss them. DP has been angling for boring day to day stuff for years and finally got his way this year, having already deliberately pushed it back for lunchtime to as late as humanly possible without it being the following morning.

Never did see what was so difficult about them. Meat goes into SC/tin in oven/wok on a low flame (brilliant for quick chicken if you spatchcock it), spuds, carrots, swede and other root veg into steamer. Come back later, put other veg on and make gravy, put onto plates with condiments.

He dared suggest the other day that 'having a Christmas Dinner isn't really a thing these days, is it?'. I blame myself for letting him cancel Sundays. So you need to nip this in the bud before he's moping around with a face like Eeyore because he's not allowed Pizza on December 25th.

I'm not that bothered by roasts, but putting my personal feelings about the actual food aside I find there is a contingent of people who are really into them who can get a bit overwhelmingly zealous. I am happy to have one, not have one, help cook, not help cook etc but I find people who are really into them can put me right off by making so much ceremony and fuss about them. They are also the people currently talking about our Christmas dinner, and I may or may not be married to one of them.

@catgirl1976

A roast is the least faffiest meal in the world. I do one every Sunday with all the trimmings including pigs in blankets, cauli cheese, home made Yorkshire’s etc and I find it simple and easy. It’s just timings and I prep everything during the time the oven is heating up and the chickens had its first 30 mins then baste it abs then it’s just a case of shoving other bits in and taking them out at the right time

But if you want you cook it

@catgirl1976

I do a roast dinner every few weeks. None of it is difficult, but it is time consuming and uses a lot of dishes

If you enjoy pottering around in the kitchen, and have a dishwasher, it's quite enjoyable. Otherwise it would be a huge faff

I'm not a big fan of roasts. Find them a bit bland but DH loves them and tries to have one every Sunday. I try to accommodate as it's only once a week but if I'm cooking I do cheat with some help from Aunt Bessie.

You cook it then

I love a roast dinner, have them most sundays but not all. I try to make them pretty easy - tonight I had a chicken crown bake in a bag, some veg and some microwavable ready made sweet potato mash, and a couple of pre made frozen yorkshire puds I chucked in the oven when I did some gravy. It was all pretty easy and convenient. Couldn't be doing with making roast potatoes with goose fat though, too faffy. There are ways of making it easier. Worst thing about it all is the washing up but then that happens with every meal..

We have one about every six weeks maybe less but we are quite adventurous cooks

@BabbleBee

I love a roast but it is a faff to cook it.

It isnt-it is really simple

Where is the faff?

I agree with a few others that say they're overrated. I really can't be bothered with all that faff. I don't even like Yorkshire puddings, but I can make them really well, so do them for the rest of the family. I don't mind a roast when I go out to a restaurant though. But I wouldn't want it more than once every few months.

My DC kick up a huge fuss if we dare suggest anything but a roast on a Sunday and it has to have roast potatoes.
On a couple of hot Sundays in the summer we got away with bbqs or pulled pork with new potatoes but they are very insistent on a roast every other week. DD is 15 and I have suggested she learns how to cook a roast (or at least the potatoes) but she's not keen.

@catgirl1976

A roast is the least faffiest meal in the world. I do one every Sunday with all the trimmings including pigs in blankets, cauli cheese, home made Yorkshire’s etc and I find it simple and easy. It’s just timings and I prep everything during the time the oven is heating up and the chickens had its first 30 mins then baste it abs then it’s just a case of shoving other bits in and taking them out at the right time

But if you want you cook it

I agree with this and tbh I don't really understand why so many of you are spending hours prepping?

I mean, even a large piece of meat will be max 2 hours (and tbh even with five of us a large chicken or piece of pork is rarely over 1 hr 20) - season and bung that it and then prep spuds and anything else. I don't use frozen anything btw, although I will use Paxo stuffing ok Asda's own.

(not that any of this matters, if you don't want to do it then don't, I'm not your mum )

@steppemum I was well into my 30s before that way of thinking wore off and I realised I could have ANY side with my roast if I was cooking it! .

We love them! Both DH and I were brought up on them. I do one most Sundays. Love the prepping, cooking it, music on, glass of wine. Then chill in front of the fire. Its my way of relaxing.

@YoungGiftedPlump the faff is the preparation- it takes bloody ages to peel all the veg, make the batter for the Yorkshire puds, make the gravy… don’t get me wrong I love a proper roast but it takes forever to make and then gets demolished in less than half that time!

A roast makes Sunday and they really aren’t hard to do.

Today - chicken in with lemon whilst peeling the spuds and then parboiling them. Fat in roasting tin in oven. Peel carrots and start gravy with chicken stock cube. Make Yorkshire pudding mix (I don’t care - they are too nice to have with beef only). Chuck drained bashed potatoes in oven.
15 mins before serving turn carrots on, add fat for Yorkies. 10 mins left Yorkie batter in, chicken out. Sprouts on with carrots and then peas. Chicken juices in gravy. Serve.

It’s not hard.

I'm skimming this thread and laughing at the competitive 'why do you take 3 hours, it only takes 3 seconds' type posts.
Rather obviously, it can take a short amount of time, or a long amount, depending on what you cook!
Frozen everything, and a boil in the bag chicken is only going to take a few minutes, but is essentially a ready meal. Fine if you like that. But others wouldn't consider that a roast.
Or, marinade/stuff your meat, make your own everything, make your own sauces etc etc is absolutely bleeding obviously going to take longer.