Happy Roast Day!
What have you had for your Sunday lunch today? The super-traditional Beef roast or have you made alternative choices today?
With my Vegetarian best friend having moved in to lodge with me, I’m making more meat-free meals than ever before. We both love a good roast and I have to confess I don’t really miss the meat element much. Mind you, I will get my meat-fix during work lunchtimes if and when I want one.
Having a roast does make you think how to replace that centrepiece element. I happen to be a great lover of root vegetables especially, so actually I’d be quite content with just the roast potatoes and variety of vegetables. But that’s not really all that adventurous.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve had some lovely nut roasts – one with Cranberries being a favourite of us both and a scrummy pine nut roast with an orange marmalade topping – served with mash, green beans and a quick and simple marmalade sauce:
For the two of us, I used :
- 42g (hotel size) jar of marmalade – we like the peel included
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
- Splash of wine
- Cornflour paste (couple of teaspoons of cornflour blended into a little cold water)
I plopped the marmalade into a small saucepan and started heating it. While it was heating and starting to melt down, I added the water, orange juice and white wine. I brought this up to the boil and then added a little cornflour paste. I stirred the sauce constantly until the sauce thickened then turned the heat right down, and stirred occasionally while the cornflour cooked in for a couple of minutes. Then, when serving up, I drizzled the sauce over the meatloaf and mash.
All last week I’ve been craving cabbage – yes I do know that’s a bit of a weird craving! I popped to the supermarket on Thursday and they’d sold out. The only cabbage left was a pre-packed bag of shredded cabbage greens. It just wasn’t what I wanted so although we ate them, my craving remained unsated.
So today, I nipped to my local shop to top up on some basics. They had a stock of fresh savoy cabbages in! Of course I grabbed one, some potatoes, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. To these I added parsnips and swede I already had at home and a couple of Yorkshire puds. For a meat-replacement centrepiece I used a couple of stuffed Portabello mushrooms.
I par-boiled the potatoes, then placed them in an oiled roasting dish and sprinkled them with chunky ground seasalt. In the same dish I added the peeled and quartered parsnips and popped them in the oven 15 minutes before adding the stuffed mushrooms on a baking tray to roast alongside for half an hour.
The swede was chopped into small cubes and boiled until soft enough to spear with a fork. I drained them, then mashed them with a good dollop of butter and some ground black pepper.
The cabbage was steamed over the other vegetables all boiled in a pan together, then drained and a dollop of butter popped on top to melt in (then stir throughout).
All this was served up with some glossy thick onion gravy; it was a real treat.
We don’t often have puddings, but well it is Sunday. The local shop had some strawberries and raspberries on deal (not in season in the UK, but thank you Spain and Africa!). These screamed ‘Eton Mess’ to me, so I chopped these into half inch (ish) pieces, crumbled in a couple of meringues and a small tub of cream. A simple stir and left to settle while we tucked into the roast.
Add a glass of wine and two sleeping cats; bliss.
I hope you enjoy what’s left of the weekend, whatever you’ve chosen to eat today.
love
Maggie x