Sunday lunch?

lilmoi1985lm

Hehe brilliant!

Its something I want to do, my OH cooks everything and I feel I cant get a look in in the kitchen unless I'm making his lunch or cakes and cookies! And I really want to master it and feel some achievement!! I can just imagine my first attempt to be a big soggy mess swimming in crap gravy! hehe

Rikki

A while back we had a Sunday lunch cook off. There were lots of new cooks joining in. I'll post a link to the thread. There is alot of humour advice and photographs. Have a read you'll gain loads of tips.

CLICK HERE

kazmeister

Sunday lunch is easy just work out your timings.

We tend to work out 20 mins per pound + additional 20 mins for all types of meat (as we prefer ours rarer rather than well done)

Roast Potatoes/Parsnips an hour or there abouts

All other veg 20 mins in steamer (put on the timer)

Bung it all in/on then go over the pub across the road for a couple of quick drinks before its ready - or in your case paints or play dough

Gravy made in the tin meats cooked in to get the juices and cooking water from unsalted veg plus if I'm feeling lazy gravy granules if not cornflour and stock cubes.

Oh and as I cant make Yorkies I use aunt bessies 4 minutes ones

moanymoany

I'm with the Kazmeister. The secret of a big meal is timing.

Write a countdown list of what and when. I wouldn't cook the meat the night before, as I'm not fond of either cold or heated up meat.

If lunch is to be at 1.30, you want the meat cooked by 1.15, the 15 minutes resting does make a difference.

I have a cheater tip for the gravy. I make a thickened stock cube gravy about an hour before the time. When the meat is cooked, about fifteen minutes before lunch time, I bring the gravy to the boil and then the meat comes out of the tin I put meat in my top oven to rest and keep warm. I drain of excess fat out of the tin and then I put the boiling gravy into the tin and give the tin bottom a quick scrape and put it back into the oven.

When the meat is on the serving dish and the veg are in their dishes I get others to put them on the table as I get the bubbling gravy out of the oven, Scraping the bottom to get all the bits I pour it into a jug. It looks very impressive and will taste good.

Sunday lunch is not difficult it itself, it is getting averything together at the right time.

OliveOyl_2

Good luck with it. If you try it I can guarantee after a few goes you will find it easy-peasy. It is the most forgiving of meals and always impresses those who haven't learnt how to do it!

I love encasing my joints (lamb in foil, chicken in a terra cotta thingy etc) I'm convinced that the slow-cooker should be able to do it as well, so I'm going to investigate that. Wrapping the meat helps to keep it really moist.

alwaysonthego_2

To make good yorkshires I use a cup of plain flour, a cup of eggs and a cup of half milk/water and mix well and I always have giant puds. Put them in the oven and keep an eye on them (make sure you use hot oil in the bottom of the y pud tin)

[Deleted User]

I get a joint of pork and put it in the slow cooker with about an inch of water. Turn it once over the cooking time (depends on size usually about 4-6 hours) and its melt in the mouth gorgeous every time. Also works with beef. If you do it this way you don't have to time the meat along with everything else as an extra 20 mins of so in slow cooker won't matter either way.

Then you can just concentrate on your meat and veg. Do you have an electric steamer?? It is dead easy to do your veg in one of those.

Yorkshire puds - 175g plain flour sifted well, pinch salt and pepper, 2 eggs, 175ml milk and 110ml water. Whisk until full of bubbles. Get pan in oven with oil in till really really hot then add the mixture and DONT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING COOKING TIME. Perfect risers every time trust me.

Impressive roast spuds are easy peasy. Chop potatoes into uniform size and put in bowl. Pour some olive oil on and add some garlic powder/granuels and some dried sage. Mix round and shove in a roasting pan in the oven for about 40 mins. They are lovely crisp roast spuds and with a lovely 'sunday dinner' flavour as they are sagey like stuffing!

As for gravy you could just use bisto best. Its a cheats way round but lifes too short to fret over gravy.

Let us know how it goes.

~Chameleon~

shelvis wrote: »

I get a joint of pork and put it in the slow cooker with about an inch of water. Turn it once over the cooking time (depends on size usually about 4-6 hours)

How do you manage to get crispy crackling in the slow cooker?

lil_me

I work it backwards from 15 minutes before I want the meat to be ready, still getting there myself and after many 'Dinners' not always on a Sunday with eiter cold meat or veg or spuds or something cold, I have had to time it.

So I start with say 2pm meal time so meat cooked by 1.45 and work out when that needs to be put in (or come out of SC as I find this a good way of doing dinners) Work out the times veg will need to go in and write those down, same for yorkshires if doing those.

I'm sure in time I will manage it without my times list, but as a person who used 'ready to roast' things, Aunt Bessies roasties and yorkshires, ready made mash even sometimes , I find it helps.

Oh the yorkshires I might try some of the amounts on here, did them with the 'Brian Turner' recipe a few times, kept failing to rise but then one time they decided to rise into HUGE puddings and ended up catching the tops on the top of the oven and burning them :rotfl: I just didn't expect them to rise. Just can't win.

I would say after the trying over and over again to me the most important thing you need (close second being a pinny as I'm the messiest cook ever!) is a sense of humour, especially if you mess it up as often as I do

Good luck hope your first Sunday Dinner is lovely. Oh another thing I always had was a back up meal planned just incase it was a complete disaster but never had to use it, nice to have peace of mind!

Nicki

How do people who go to church regularly cope with planning Sunday lunch?

We need to leave the house at 10.10 and get back home between 12.30 and 1.00pm, which is too short to put things in the slow cooker, but a bit too long to leave most things in even a low oven. The cooker does have a timer so I could I suppose set the timer to come on after I left, but would still need ideas for things which all cook at the same temp and in the same length of time.

Does anyone have any ideas for lunches which work in these circumstances? Is it possible to do a traditional Sunday lunch, given that I wouldn't be there to put roast potatoes on in hot oil, and if so, how?

Thanks for all advice.