Do you sit down to a family roast?
I did a full roast last monday, I do them quite often but usually on a week day.
Today we are having toad in the hole, at the moment though I’m turning the last of the sprouts from the garden into soup. 
Parrrrp!!!
I’m glad I don’t have to share the cab with repton tomorrow. 
Well today we are having lamb, chops mash and veg
I don’t usually do a full roast on a sunday anymore but I do in the week as everyone seems to eat it better in the week
I don’t go in for fancy stuff, so if it has a yellow sticker and can be eaten with a spoon then it’s fine. 
Oh, and pies with yellow stickers are good too. 
A roast would be good, but it takes far more time than I have, and would probably result in me giving myself food poisoning. 
One of life’s great mysteries is how to get all the parts of a roast to be ready to eat at the same time. 
Anybody who can achieve that has my utmost respect. 
I never could see any point in making a meal out of having a meal 
Roast chicken with the usual trimmings here - I don’t normally bother, but it was a Mothers’ Day pressie to myself… 
Dave - The trick is in a) knowing how long stuff takes to cook so you know when to sling it in and b) cheating when you get it wrong by keeping stuff warm in the bottom of the oven.
Lucy:
Dave - The trick is in a) knowing how long stuff takes to cook so you know when to sling it in and b) cheating when you get it wrong by keeping stuff warm in the bottom of the oven.
I do understand the principle behind that Lucy, but the times and temperature settings are so very various for all the different foods.
Then there’s all the necessary preparation time to consider.
Some people seem to instinctively know all this, but since nobody was born with that knowledge, it must have been very time consuming to learn it all.
Then, once one has gone to all that effort, the reward is a mountain of washing-up. 
It’s great if one has the time, or the opportunity to share/delegate the duties, but I don’t have either.
doing Roast Turkey here ( it was reduced in Somerfield) with the works
SWMBO and youngest daughter have gone to a hunter trial so it’s a nice peaceful house here - as long as I’ve cooked it by 7.00 otherwise that might change ¬
See now that’s where you’re going wrong Dave…Cooking, unlike Hazardous Freight, is NOT an exact science…plus there are loads of ways to cheat…
For example: Roast spuds for one would involve 5 minutes to peel a couple of baking tatties and chop them into roastie size, then sling em in water and boil until softish…That way you can just sling them into a small tray with a bit of oil half an hour before you want to eat them, on the top shelf above, and at the same temperature as the meat. Ditto carrots (love 'em roasted) and parsnips - singular in your case.
Most of the supermarkets do “mini-roasts” that come in their own little disposable tray…which if you cook them first and hoike them onto a plate with foil over, means zero washing up, as you can brown off your spuds etc. in the meat juice in the same tray. The meat doesn’t need to stay red hot, a bit of gravy over the top will soon reheat it when the time comes.
For green veg, a bit of frozen in a bowl, blast in the microwave, job done.
So that gives you…half hour whilst the mini-roast cooks, during which you can peel and chop your one spud, carrot and parsnip and boil it up. Another half hour whilst you brown the above off, and blast your other veg. Buy ready made gravy, so another 2 minutes in the micro whilst you dish up. Total time - an hour, with plenty of feet-up time between bursts of minimal effort. You could reduce it even more if you bought ready prepared root veg to avoid chopping and peeling. 
You’ve cooked your spuds etc. in one pan then roasted in the meat thingy, and the gravy comes in a punnet. That just leaves a bowl for the green veg, so total washing up would be one chopping board, one bowl, one small pan, a spoon, a fork, a sharp knife, plus whatever you eat it off/with.
I have actually done this in the past, btw…and it works out very nicely indeed. (unless you’re a hippy like Lindsey, in which case allow a couple of months in which to grow it all as well. )
For the record, I’ve also produced a full Christmas dinner on a two ring stove in a caravan, with a hob top oven for the meat - on one of my two rings…As well as several very nice roast pheasant and rabbit dinners over an open firepit, including collecting and sawing the wood up and shooting/sending the lurcher after the meat. Anything is possible.
Lucy:
See now that’s where you’re going wrong Dave…Cooking, unlike Hazardous Freight, is NOT an exact science…plus there are loads of ways to cheat…For example: Roast spuds for one would involve 5 minutes to peel a couple of baking tatties and chop them into roastie size, then sling em in water and boil until softish…That way you can just sling them into a small tray with a bit of oil half an hour before you want to eat them, on the top shelf above, and at the same temperature as the meat. Ditto carrots (love 'em roasted) and parsnips - singular in your case.
Most of the supermarkets do “mini-roasts” that come in their own little disposable tray…which if you cook them first and hoike them onto a plate with foil over, means zero washing up, as you can brown off your spuds etc. in the meat juice in the same tray. The meat doesn’t need to stay red hot, a bit of gravy over the top will soon reheat it when the time comes.
For green veg, a bit of frozen in a bowl, blast in the microwave, job done.So that gives you…half hour whilst the mini-roast cooks, during which you can peel and chop your one spud, carrot and parsnip and boil it up. Another half hour whilst you brown the above off, and blast your other veg. Buy ready made gravy, so another 2 minutes in the micro whilst you dish up. Total time - an hour, with plenty of feet-up time between bursts of minimal effort. You could reduce it even more if you bought ready prepared root veg to avoid chopping and peeling.
You’ve cooked your spuds etc. in one pan then roasted in the meat thingy, and the gravy comes in a punnet. That just leaves a bowl for the green veg, so total washing up would be one chopping board, one bowl, one small pan, a spoon, a fork, a sharp knife, plus whatever you eat it off/with.
I have actually done this in the past, btw…and it works out very nicely indeed. (unless you’re a hippy like Lindsey, in which case allow a couple of months in which to grow it all as well.
For the record, I’ve also produced a full Christmas dinner on a two ring stove in a caravan, with a hob top oven for the meat - on one of my two rings…As well as several very nice roast pheasant and rabbit dinners over an open firepit, including collecting and sawing the wood up and shooting/sending the lurcher after the meat. Anything is possible.
You’re obviously highly skilled at all this Lucy, but the other thing I forgot to mention is admirably demonstrated in your post.
This cookery malarkey requires a level of multi-tasking that would make my poor brain (or what’s left of it) go into a spin.
I understand, and can follow instructions, but what do I do with the half an hour whilst x, y, or z cooks?
My next problem is remembering when that half an hour ends, because whatever I do in the interim is bound to absorb me.
TBF, there isn’t much chance of anybody getting me to do more than one job properly at a time.
Believe me, I’ve tried all this several times with abysmal results that even the the cats won’t eat.
I’m probably a lost cause in the domestic department-- it’s that bad that I tend to wait for the washing machine, whilst others would do food prep or vacuuming whilst it’s doing its work.
In my former life, I did the washing-up, because it’s a single task that I can do to a very good standard. Multi-tasking just isn’t one of my talents.
Ok, I give up! You’ll just have to let me know what time you’re coming next time you want a roast cooking for you.
Lucy:
:lol:Ok, I give up!
Do you do takeaway?? (Don’t answer that )
Everybody has their uses, and mine are to mash tea and do washing-up.
(But only if I can do them one at a time )
The soup is not bad at all I was sceptical I must admit but it has past the test and 3 lots are in the freezer.
Its confidence and practice Dave, repton used to buy those cat food pouches of spaggetti bolognese sauce when I met him but with training he makes the most wonderful spag bol now from scratch.
Lucy is right, there are very few dinners easier to cook than a roast, you bung it in the oven and let it get on with it.
He’s making the toad in the hole while I sit here on my laptop and doing a jigsaw. ( this is the life contented sigh)
Lucy:
See now that’s where you’re going wrong Dave…Cooking, unlike Hazardous Freight, is NOT an exact science…plus there are loads of ways to cheat…For example: Roast spuds for one would involve 5 minutes to peel a couple of baking tatties and chop them into roastie size, then sling em in water and boil until softish…That way you can just sling them into a small tray with a bit of oil half an hour before you want to eat them, on the top shelf above, and at the same temperature as the meat. Ditto carrots (love 'em roasted) and parsnips - singular in your case.
something like that, although throwing it it all in the aga at various intervals works for me anything thats get cooked too soon gets thrown in the bottom oven
Denis F:
something like that, although throwing it it all in the aga at various intervals works for me
Now there’s another good point.
How are the untrained (me) to know when something is or isn’t cooked??
I tend to adopt a belt-and-braces approach and burn everything slightly, just to be sure.
Either that, or just stick to “spring surprise” and “frogbelch soup” and of course cheese, when it can be obtained
Ladytrucker679:
The soup is not bad at all
Its confidence and practice Dave, repton used to buy those cat food pouches of spaggetti bolognese sauce when I met him but with training
Lucy is right, there are very few dinners easier to cook than a roast, you bung it in the oven and let it get on with it.He’s making the toad in the hole while I sit here on my laptop and doing a jigsaw. ( this is the life contented sigh)
Pasta is a bit tricky, because it needs pinching or throwing at the wall, but I do seem to have mastered x, y, or z with boiled rice.
It always comes out like camion stew though.
Denis F:
something like that, although throwing it it all in the aga at various intervals works for me
We must have gone to the same cooking school.
Taste it Dave! Its that simple. Taste your veg while its still got its colour and stick a knife in a chicken and if the juices run clear its done.
The best way to learn is to share a kitchen with a confident friend, that way you learn to enjoy it instead of being scared of it.
Unless you get so distracted talking to your said friend (lucy) so you completely forget what you are doing and have a sponge moment
Ladytrucker679:
Never a truer word spoken.
I wasn’t allowed in our kitchen, so my lack of knowledge is probably down to having a half Italian wife who was trained by her mother and aunts in all manner of domestic stuff, because that was the choice in the southern part of Italy at the time. Females either went to school, or learned domestic stuff.
That’s not a sexist comment BTW, it’s just the truth of what happened before I met her.
I’ll just say that I followed orders.
As for learning the missing skills, there’s lots of things I’d like to learn, but time is the problem, since I’m often away and it’s all rather unpredictable.
Ahhhh, yes…a sponge moment…A new phrase to go down in history along with breathing breaks and pea-ing on the table…
It’s a long story.