Quick & easy weeknight roast dinner

My family are typical northern easterners (is that a term? It is now...) and absolutely love a roast dinner. With yorkshire puddings and gravy - no matter what meat we're having. It's also a great way to shoehorn more veg into the kids - W loves broccoli and cauliflower and S loves absolutely anything dipped in gravy!

Now I don't know about your house, but in ours the after school period is a mess of hunger and tiredness, clingy toddler and moaning schoolie. Additionally, despite my best 'Mary Poppins' impression, there's a frustrated mam trying to cook a decent meal for her family.

For me, there is also the extra challenge of being chronically ill. Sometimes I can happily charge around throwing a healthy together, other days it is a really physical struggle. Some days it is also a mental struggle.

Is a weeknight roast possible under these unfavourable conditions, you might ask. My answer is not always, but using tools like a slow cooker or a digital pressure cooker make it a lot easier. I mostly do them on my days off so I have time to prep veg while S naps in the afternoon, but if I'm in a real pinch I will use frozen pre-chopped veg.

I got my digital pressure cooker for my birthday last year and it quickly became my favourite kitchen gadget - and trust me, I have many. The model I have a 5 litre Pressure King Pro. One of the best things about it is that you can cook meat in there from frozen, which is so handy for me as I often forget to get things out to defrost. I do also love my slow cooker, but it does mean having to be organised in the morning which is currently not something I excel at!

There are a few different ways I organise my weeknight roasts:

1. Use the pressure cooker to cook the meat, using the recommended timings in the PKP recipe book. While that is cooking I might make some Yorkshire puddings, or alternatively referee two fighting kids and stick some frozen ones in the oven instead. I use this recipe.

I sometimes roast cauliflower too - I often prep this ahead of time, chopping and marinating in a little oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar. I season and roast for about 35-40 minutes.

When the meat is ready I then take it out to rest leaving the liquid inside. I then pop potatoes in the liquid at the bottom and pop it on steam for 5 minutes. Then, leaving the potatoes in, I pop some veg on the steamer tray that sits above the liquid and pop it back on for 2-3 minutes. 

2. Choose a small joint of meat and oven roast it - I do this mostly with pork that has a layer of fat on top for crackling. I still do the veg in the same way as method 1. 

3. Stick the chicken/joint of meat in the slow cooker in the morning, and do the veg later. If I'm super tired, stressed or short of time I will microwave some frozen mash (don't judge me) and boil or steam some frozen veg. 

As you can probably surmise, none of these methods allow for the slow and careful process of making homemade gravy. I often use the liquid from the pressure cooker to add to gravy granules - Bisto Best is our favourite brand. 

Do you have any weeknight cooking hacks or favourite pressure cooker or slow cooker recipes? Let me know in the comments! 

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