Just doing my Ocado Christmas order and got to wondering, what do you think of frozen roast potatoes and parsnips

[handlemecarefully]

...as an alternative to buying raw parsnips and potatoes and roasting them myself.

My roast vegetables are never that great anyway....

Can you personally tell much difference between frozen roast potatoes and parsnips and home prepared ones?

For me, Christmas isn't about enslavement at the cooker....so am tempted

I ordered frozen parsnips from Waitrose (ordered by accident, thought were fresh). I cooked them anyway because IMO roast dinners without parsnips are a waste of time. They were vile, strange, woolly texture and they didn't taste the same as fresh ones.

It's not any more fag to use fresh veg as opposed to frozen - and if you can't be bothered to chop up/prepare etc but they ready peeled spuds/ready washed cabbage etc.

Only decent frozen veg are peas I think.

You can do them yourself from scratch now and stick them in the freezer if you dont want to be peeling on christmas day. Just peel ,parboil ,cool and open freeze on a tray before sticking them in a freezer bag. On the big day cook them straight from frozen (drizzle with olive oil before putting in the oven)

wouldnt ue either.... ever

how hard is it to peel / chop a potatoe or parsnip?

It's not the peeling or the chopping - it's the not getting a soggy mushy roast potato / parsnip offering but rather a crisp appetising one ...which is elusive

if they aren't getting crisp enough you could try cooking them on a higher temperature ,and make sure you don't overcrowd the tray

I know its not in line with modern thinking but lard makes brilliant roasties

oh!

so far i have never cooked a soggy roast potatoe or parsnip.... I have had sunday roast nearl;y every sunday of my life, notmally at my mums / grans or here and not sure ive ever had one cooked by eitehr of us!

not sure why though, it just didnt ocur to me that they even might go soggy.

We parboil potatoes (not parsnips)... then after drained them shake them vigerously in the saucepan with the lid on to make them fluffy.
Have a little oil already in a tray in oven and make it very hot in oven...
remove from oven and immediatly put pots / parsnips in... (and they sizzle) and use a brush to baste a little oil all over them... and back in oven for an hour, turing half way through... perfect unsoggy roast pots / parsnips

Also there is a technical reason (That i have herd but forgooten the reason) why animal fat (rather than vegetable fat) makes better roast pots / parsnips, but even so mine are perfectly ok when i use veg oil

At Xmas though it has to be animal fat, ideally goose or duck!

I'm with handlemecarefully on this one, frozen roast potatoes are better than my creations....

If you're willing to throw money at the problem, Waitrose do yummy roast potatoes in goose fat,chilled not frozen, bit impractical if you're feeding a dozen though!

I bought frozen parsnips once they are GRIMOLA - tough and stringy

aunt bessies stuff is all so salty