Memoirs of an Amateur Cook

Fresh out of the oven and dinner for the next five days

Roast dinners……something that the UK is known for across the world and a staple of the traditional British diet.  In our household, we are not traditional in the sense that we don’t have a roast dinner every Sunday lunchtime, sat around a table with all of our family, with a suitably calorific and stodgy pudding like treacle tart or spotted dick to follow to ensure our tummys are fully extended and rotund for the rest of the day.  We do, however, like a roast dinner once every couple of weeks mainly because it means we can be ultra-economical, we can easily plan all of our meals for the following week and it is so goddamn tasty not to mention healthy if you follow a few tips to save on the calories!

Cooking roast dinners can sometimes be a bit time-consuming so, as we had yesterday off work, I decided to cook a roast on a Monday.  Due to Mr MAC working in the area he does (butchery supplies) we are fortunate enough to have several large joints in the freezer at any one time.  This weeks victim was a turkey butterfly breast…..remember people, a turkey is for life not just for Christmas! 

We massaged the joint with some crushed and chopped rosemary, thyme, lemon juice, salt and pepper before spraying with frylight and popping in the oven.  Accompaniments were in the form of roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots (do you sense a theme here?!) leeks and sugar snap peas along with gravy which I had made from scratch (the way it should always be – thank you to my Mom for the tips!).  Unfortunately, I had been a little bit heavy-handed with the Worcestershire sauce when making the gravy so the flavour was a bit over powering but all in all a lovely meal.

A few tips to make your roast waistline friendly:

• Use really good non stick pans so that no oil is needed
• In place of oil, use a small amount of fry light
• Bisto and instant gravy tends to be lower in syns than traditional gravy so if using this, add some extra herbs and worcestershire sauce for added flavour
• If making gravy from scratch, use as little flour as possible.
• Remove the skin from your meat before eating.  Remember – you should leave the skin on the leftover meat when wrapping up to put in the fridge; this will ensure the meat is kept as moist as possible.
• Carrots taste a lot more interesting and appealing if you roast them instead of boiling.

The purpose of this post and the purpose of calling it ‘Part One’ is because the same turkey (you can see from the picture it is a bit of a whopper!) will feed us for the next five days.  Waste not want not is one of my favourite mottos!  So tune in over the next few days for some of my favourite ‘leftovers’ recipes which I promise will be really tasty, healthy and will save you a penny or two in the process!!