Sunday Roast-ess with the Most-ess

Story: In England, most pubs and restaurants offer a Roast that is only available on Sunday evenings. The "Sunday Roast" as it is creatively called usually consists of hearty food such as roast beef, rotisserie chicken, or a pork loin. The sides range from potatoes to broccoli to turnips. The veggies are traditionally prepared very simply with salt, pepper, and the drippings from the roasting meat.

The Sunday Roast first started when medieval squires provided their serfs with a meal on Sundays to reward them for a week of hard work. The meal would usually center around a roast boar or roast oxen.

From Amicus Curry

So as this story goes, my roommate and I had a ridiculous work schedule this week. In the spirit of our English forefathers, I made my version of a Sunday roast in which my roommate took part.*

*In no way should this be directly construed as my roommate being my serf, however; if it walks and talks like a duck...

The Meal: My version of dinner starts with a spiral sliced ham. I didn't have time to prepare an entire ham myself so I took the short cut of getting prepared ham. This one was from Trader Joes (hopefully one day I can get them to sponsor me).

From Amicus Curry

As far as my first side goes, I made a Hawaiian-style mac salad. Mac salad can be found all over the islands where they famously accompany sweet Korean short ribs. Tourists and locals alike

devour Hawaiian lunch plates consisting of a protein, a heap of mac salad, and a mound of white rice.

From Amicus Curry

Cook farfalle pasta with boiling salt water. I prefer farfalle pasta since I think the dressing coats it better than elbow noodles. For some reason, a few recipes will tell you to "overcook" the pasta (or cook it longer than you would al dente) since the pasta seems to soak up the dressing better.

Once the pasta is cooked all the way through, rinse it thoroughly with cold water to stop the cooking process.

From Amicus Curry

Once the pasta is cooled to room temperature, add the juice of half a lemon into the pasta.

From Amicus Curry

Take a heaping spoon of non-fat sour cream and a spoon of low fat mayo into the pasta. Most recipes don't require sour cream but most people I know are weirded out with eating that much mayo (the non-fat sour cream makes this dish a tad bit healthier).

From Amicus Curry

Add in salt, seasoned salt, pepper, and paprika into the mix.

From Amicus Curry

Finally, throw in a handful of shredded carrots. The carrots add a sweet crunch into the dish that works well with the salty creaminess of the pasta.

From Amicus Curry

Mac salad's close up.

From Amicus Curry

Put your "salad" into the fridge. Here, the longer it stays in the refrigerator the better the dish. You should give the pasta a chance to soak up the dressing and for the pasta to firm up.

Asparagus

For my second side, I decide to make a roasted balsamic asparagus. This is a very simple dish.

From Amicus Curry

Ingredients: Asparagus, olive oil, lemon, balsamic vinegar, blue cheese, salt and pepper.

From Amicus Curry

A trick that I just recently learned. If you take the asparagus and snap it while holding it at both ends, the stalk will snap into two parts. The top of the stalk is edible and the bottom is the part you throw away.

From Amicus Curry

You can use the snapped asparagus as a ruler to cut the rest of the asparagus.

From Amicus Curry

Season the stalks with salt, pepper, and olive oil and put them into a 400F oven for 7 minutes.

From Amicus Curry

When the asparagus start to slightly wilt take the asparagus out. Crumble some blue cheese and sprinkle balsamic vinegar onto the stalks.

From Amicus Curry

Put the dish back into the oven for 3-5 minutes until the cheese is fully melted and the asparagus is done.

From Amicus Curry

We hammed it up. This ham from Trader Joes was organic and nitrate free. I really don't know what that means but it sounds healthy.

From Amicus Curry

Sunday Roast is done. I added a biscuit it seemed fitting.

From Amicus Curry

Cheers!

From Amicus Curry