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Former_MSE_Penelope
Posts: 536 Forumite
Great 'Cheap Christmas recipes' Hunt
From buying the Turkey to making the posh pudding, cooking a Christmas lunch can soon become very pricey. So we'd like to hear MoneySavers' cheap and cheerful Xmas recipes to bring the cost down.
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I think that the best bit of the turkey is the legs.
The meat is stronger & darker and beats breast into a cocked hat.
It's also amazingly cheap at just £1.80 / kg
So
Ingredients;
Turkey leg - go to a butcher and ask for a big one.
Sausage meat - from the butcher - 500g costs about £3
While you're in the butcher, ask him for some 'baking bands'.
An apple, an onion, an egg & a couple of slices of bread
Palma ham - do not buy this from the supermarket where it's £2.99 for 80g packets, find a nice Italian deli where it's typically £1.50/100g
Method
Make breadcrumbs in food processor
Peel the onion, quarter it, chuck it in the food processor
apple in the food processor
mix these 3 with the sausage meat
add the egg to bind it all together
roll it up into a big sausage using cling film
remove cling film
roll the palma ham around the sausage
- bone out the turkey leg - this is easy, you just need a sharp knife and a degree of patience, try to get out as many tendons as you can too. It's really not critical how well you do it, as long as you ensure that you only slit the skin down the one side where you make your cut.
As the bone comes out, it unrolls into a surprisingly large slab of meat.
Finally wrap the turkey around the palma ham / sausage meat and secure it with the baking bands - (oven proof rubber bands)
Bung in the oven at 200C for 20 minutes
Turn down to 160C for about 90 minutes
Remove, cover with tin foil, tea towels & leave to rest for half hour.
Shed loads for less than a tenner - good luck.0 -
We always have smoked salmon for our starter, but if you just put smoked salmon on the plates, you will use a lot. You can make it look even more special by making your smaller amount of smoked salmon into individual smoked salmon mousses.
The recipe I use is http://www.food.com/recipe/lovely-smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese-entree-245892 and I use a mini-muffin baking tray for the moulds (two per person).
Serve them with a few bits of salad and some Melba Toast, which looks as if you have been slaving for hours but is really easy to make. For each person you want one slice from a thin-sliced white loaf, preferably slightly stale. Toast the bread and cut off the crusts, leaving square pieces of toast. Cut each piece in half through the thickness of the slice, leaving you with two very thin pieces of bread, toasted on one side and just bread on the other. Now cut each of these across into two triangles. Lay all the pieces on a baking tray (they can be a bit jumbled up) and pop them in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. They will curl up slightly and dry out. Take them out and let them cool before packing them away in an airtight container until you need them.
Also, remember that cooking from scratch is much cheaper than buying stuff readymade.
If you have herbs, onion and an old loaf, you have the ingredients for stuffing.
When wrapping bacon around the chipolatas, stretch the bacon by laying it on a board and running the back of a knife along the strip. It will stretch up to twice the original length, so you need half as much!0 -
LOL
I make one batch of Nigellas Cranberry mincemeat and I use this to make - Delias little mincemeat souffles, last minute xmas pudding and last minute xmas cake, a mincemeat struedel, puff pastry mincemeat wheels and mince pies
I keep mine in the freezer instead of sterilised jars and I get all my fruit from Julia graves/holland and barrett as they are cheaper and I use whatever booze I have to hand which has included vodka and tequilla in the past
Mincemeat is great to experiment with and homemade is better and cheaper than shop bought - plus you can exclude things like mixed peel bleurgh!
NatDMP: £30,668 £3,364.02 DFD July 20240 -
Time 40 mints:
method- Put the mince in a mixing bowl with the breadcrumbs and half the garlic. Season and mix well to combine. Using your hands, shape the mixture into 12 balls, then chill for 10 mins.
- Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the onion, carrot and remaining garlic. Cook for 5-6 mins until softened. Add the fennel seeds and cook for a few secs. Tip in the tomatoes with half a can of water, then stir in the tomato pur!e. Season and simmer for 15 mins until thickened. Using an electric hand blender, whizz until roughly smooth.
- Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the meatballs for 8-10 mins until cooked through. Transfer to the sauce and simmer until piping hot. Serve with spaghetti.
Per serving
216 kcalories, protein 26g, carbohydrate 12g, fat 8 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 2g, sugar 6g, salt 0.46 g0 -
Home made blinis will stretch the smoked salmon too.They can be made in advance and frozen.
I make my christmas pudding in my slow cooker. It takes 8 hours but the water doesn't need topping up every hour or so.I reheat it in the slow cooker on christmas day-leaves another gas burner free.0
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