From Sunday Roast to Sunday Soup

All through my childhood Sunday meant hours of work, mainly by my mum and nana, sacrificed at the shrine of the Sunday Roast.

It started in the morning with the question " dinner for dinner, or dinner for tea?". We lived in the midlands of England so for us dinner meant the midday meal. Decision reached on this question was followed by a debate on which veg and then by calculations as to what time the meat would need to go in and whether Yorkshires or roasters were required.

Myself or my sisters would get called in to peel some veg or stir the made from scratch gravy but on the whole it seemed like a Herculean task far beyond my comprehension. Despite making many such meals myself somehow it still does. And maybe that's why I've made the semi-conscious decision to stop.

In fairness my husband is at heart a meat and two veg man. He'll make polite noises about fancier dishes but his satisfaction is never so great as when presented with an extremely plain meal which he then leaves to go cold before he eats it. (Mental shrug). In order to facilitate this further and to remove a few bad habits we have fallen into (why do kids love McDonald's so much?) he suggested a month of "nothing out of a jar".

I was more than happy to go along with this but I found that by the time I got to Sunday my mouth was not salivating at the thought of yet more chicken breast, broccoli and potatoes in its many personas. A quick exploration of the cupboard quickly unearthed some leeks and spring onions, there are always potatoes in. So on the Sunday morning before hubby was up the leeks and spring onions got lightly fried in butter, the potatoes were boiled up, a stock was organised and the whole lot came together most definitely not from a jar.

RAAF Museum - ready for display

We had a lovely day out at the RAAF museum and saw a mini air display and then came home to steaming bowls of leek and potato soup with a nice loaf of crusty bread. I could splash out on a nice loaf because I wasn't paying for meat.

Since then I've followed it on consecutive Sundays with a carrot and coriander soup, and then with a red lentil and carrot soup. I do usually run it all through a food processor to make a lovely thick winter soup, partly because I think a lot of soups are good this way, and partly because one of my little aspie's quirks is that he prefers his food to be separate. This way he sees only soup, not veggies all mixed together in a liquid. If there is a soup I'd rather leave alone then I can just zzzzz his.

Dubious at first, the kids actually cleaned their plates and followed it down with bowls of homemade chocolate ice cream. More of that later! Actually the kids enjoyed the change and the lower formality and fun of tearing up the bread to dip into the soup.

Bacon and Potato Soup - ready to eat

The benefits, it's no problem to whip the soup in the morning while my mini men eat their porridge and watch a few cartoons. It's cheap! Seriously usually it's mainly veggies (although this weeks was bacon and potato) but even so I would say I must have saved at least $40 this month compared to the meals I would normally have made. It's nutritious and you know exactly what has gone into it. And last but not least its helping to develop the kids taste buds and texture palette. Oh and even more last there are far fewer dirty dishes and no roasting pans to clean!

So while I'm not saying I'll never make a Sunday Roast again, right now I'm enjoying the change for a few weeks.

 

ClairLou