Oven Pride : Sunday Roast Dinner Campaign

I have a confession. I am a messy cook. There I have said it.

Seriously, as much as I enjoy being creative in the kitchen and will ~~happily~~ clean up afterwards, I make the kitchen resemble a bomb site by the time I am finished! Everytime I cook pasta, the water over flows the pan and makes a mess on the ring, and often when I stir something splashes appear on the hob or splashback! The oven is also a little in need of a deep clean, where the bottom has become blackened by spillages of cottage pie sauce, or cakes that spilled over allowing small splats of batter to escape and land on the oven floor. And don’t let me get started on the kitchen worktops and the floor!!! I think I will leave that to your imagionation!

Oven Pride recently contacted me to see if I would like to be involved in a Kitchen Nightmares challenge, whereby they invited me to re-create a celebrity chef recipe based around the great British tradition which is a Sunday roast dinner. They wanted me to record how I got on making it, and discuss how easy/hard it was to make and also how much mess making such a meal made in my kitchen. Of course, sending me some Oven Pride Complete Oven Cleaner means that however I got on, at least I knew that my oven could be restored to some kind of clean and tidy state! Anyway, I agreed and I was sent a copy of the new Jamie Oliver Comfort Food book (*this* made me very excited as I love his cookery books!), and asked to cook his beef wellington. I have never made one of these before, but I do remember my Mum making it on special occasions for my Dad when I was growing up, so I was aware of how much time and effort it takes, but how rewarding the taste of it is.

So the other weekend, I invited my Mum, Step Dad and Nanny over for lunch and guess what was on the menu? Yep, my version of Jamie’s beef wellington *gulps*. I bought the ingredients and of course using beef fillet to encase in pastry, meant spending almost £50 just on the meat alone!!! I jokingly told the lady at the butcher counter, that I never spend that much on meat apart from my Christmas turkey! Anyway, with everything in place Sunday morning, I set about searing the meat, making my mushroom and chicken liver pate and then wrapping it all up in (ready made – yay to Jamie not making his own rough puff!) puff pastry ready to place it inside the oven.

I also had to make my own maderia, blackcurrant and thyme based sauce (well, posh gravy to us non chef types!) which again was aided by the fact that I was allowed to use ready made beef stock (thanks again Jamie!).

Once it was cooked, I got everyone to the table and we all sat all eyes on the wellington waiting to see how it would look inside. To my immense relief it looked great, and my family were all very lovely and said how good it looked and how the beef looked like it should for a wellington. It did not look as neat as Jamie’s does when it was cut into slices, BUT it tasted AMAZING!!! Oh it was sooooooo good, and you could tell that the beef cost what it did because it was melt in the mouth.

The gravy complimented the beef wellington superbly and I served it with (slimming world) roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli. It was delicious and my Step Dad and OH had seconds! Everyone said how yummy it was and how tasty the sauce was with it aswell. I have never eaten beef wellington before, but I would love to again because it tasted so nice. It was actually not very hard to make , the recipe was very easy to follow and the only change I made was that I bought ready made chicken liver pate, as my supermarket did not have any chicken livers available. If I am honest the only thing which would stop me from making it again for a normal Sunday roast is the fact that the beef costs so much money. However, that said, I would consider doing it for a special occasion again, and maybe for an alternative Christmas dinner as that would justify the expense in making it. Otherwise I would opt for a smaller piece of beef fillet which would make it more affordable.

I actually enjoy cooking a Sunday roast, and while we dont eat it as much during the summer months, it is a firm family favourite during Winter. I would say I roast at least once a month, and I would do more but the boys are a little fussy and Burton, at the age of 5, is only just now eating a roast dinner!! However, Oven Pride has conducted research into Sunday dinners and found that fewer than a third of Brits are now enjoying a weekly Sunday roast, with Italian food and takeaways being most responsible for the decline.

The results of the research, with 1,000 respondents questioned during November 2014, showed that:

*One in four Brits has never cooked a Christmas dinner
*Fewer than a third of Brits are now enjoying a weekly Sunday roast
*Italian food and takeaways are the types of meal most often replacing a Sunday roast
*While nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of British parents could look forward to a weekly *Sunday roast at home when they were young, fewer than a third (29 per cent) of families are now eating it on a weekly basis
*Mum is still the master of Sunday roasts, with just nine per cent of British women having never cooked a roast, compared with a quarter (24 per cent) of men
*It is the time it takes to make a Sunday roast (23 per cent) and the difficulty of serving everything warm (19 per cent), followed by the mess a Sunday roast creates (15 per cent) which irk us the most
*More than a third (36 per cent) say making a mess of their oven puts them off cooking some recipes
*While 11 per cent of Brits worry about burning the dinner, 14 per cent worry about the mess it will make to their kitchen
*One in four say their biggest fear with Christmas dinner is the meat being under cooked and 34 per cent say it is not having everything ready at the same time
49 per cent of those aged 60 and over still make Christmas dinner, whilst just 23 per cent of those aged 30-44 do so
*Regionally, the North East and Yorkshire (33 per cent) and Wales (31 per cent) are home to the most people who never cook on Christmas day

I find this very surprising because a roast is such a great value for money meal, one which always has leftovers so makes my money spread far. It is also the meal that gets a family together around the table, to enjoy the food and the company I think.

How often do you cook a Sunday roast? Is this British tradition dying out?

Obviously, making such a meal does come with its fair share of mess and taking over most of my kitchen work surfaces!! Luckily, the great cleaning power of Oven Pride Complete Oven Cleaner heped me to get my oven spick and span. I was so impressed that the box contains protective gloves and a bag for cleaning the oven racks inside – making it very much a *complete* and easy cleaning pack for your oven.

It is so simple to use, and did not take too much effort which is a big plus in my opinion.I left it inside my oven for the afternoon (minimum of 4 hours is required, better still if it can be left overnight), and when I returned to wipe it clean I could really see a difference.

Before

AfterAll ready for the mess that cooking a Christmas dinner cooking will make!!!

This Christmas Oven Pride is encouraging everyone across the UK not to let their oven put them off cooking a full Christmas dinner with all of the trimmings. Whether the oven needs a clean before having friends and family to come and stay, or the festive fare leaves it in need of a scrub – Oven Pride’s quick and easy system is here to make cleaning your oven less of a nightmare this Christmas.