Showing posts with label roast dinner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roast dinner. Show all posts

Thursday, 3 December 2015

Every Day is a Roast Day for this Family - Toby Carvery Review #ManicMumDay


We all know that Mums generally lead a busy life and let's be honest many dads do as well. Recent research commissioned by Toby Carvery showed that most mums do not get to sit down on an evening until 8.07pm and I think on average this is probably about right, although some nights it is closer to 9pm!

It is for this reason that Toby Carvery offered my family and I to go along to our local restaurant (which in our case is Willingdon Drove, Eastbourne) on a week night and enjoy a meal that is cooked for us and involves no washing or clearing up. Result!

We booked a table using the online booking system, which is super easy and I have to confess that I have no idea you could book a table for Toby nowadays, as you never used to be able to. I was very aware from the start that the email confirmation (and reminder emailed to me the day before the reservation) stated that the table would only be held for 10 minutes from the reservation time and thus we arrived promptly.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Roast Dinners - not just for Sundays!


If you asked me what my favourite meal is I'd probably have to think long and hard as there is so much food I love but if you asked me what my favourite British dish is then quick as a flash I'd be telling you it is a traditional roast dinner. Beef or lamb being in the top spot and then chicken following close behind.

My family all seem to be taking the lead from me as well as if I tell them we are having a roastie I get responses from my kids like 'ohh, yum', 'thanks Mum, you're the best' and 'Yeessss!'.  I think they love the notion that all the food goes into the middle of the table and we help ourselves and have a real social time chatting and enjoying ourselves. They feel quite grown up being allowed to pour their own gravy and have finally learnt that what they put on their plate they must eat and they are slowly learning it is better to have seconds if still hungry than to pile a plate high and miss out on the leftover yorkshire puddings or dessert.

One of the things I don't really understand is why people in Britain think of the roast dinner as being just for Sundays. I rarely cook our roasts on a Sunday and whenever we have friends over to join us they always comment on how decadent we are having a roast meat on a week night. It does make me chuckle.  For us I'm too busy on  a Sunday at Church or going out and enjoying family time to spend a couple of hours stuck near the cooker, whereas on a week night once the kids are home we can get on with homework, housework or whatever and I can keep an eye.

Last weekend Knorr kindly sent me through some of their gravy pots and also a joint of beef and some veggies so I could cook up the family a good meal and see what their verdict is on the Knorr gravy pots. These little post (in either beef, chicken or onion) give you the full flavour of gravy without the hassle of trying to use the meat juices, a saucepan and gravy browning.

Obviously we had the beef gravy with this meal and it was really good. I've used the stock pots before and I think I overcooked it last time as the gravy became very thick but this time I whisked and cooked it for less time (it only needs one minute after all) and it was a perfect consistency. I did find I needed to use two pots to make enough gravy for our family of five.

As I never feel confident to make my own gravy I like these little gravy pots and will use them again, however at £1.75 for 4 pots they are not the cheapest.

Disclosure: We were sent the ingredients to make this meal, I did not have any obligation to blog and have not been instructed what to write.
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