Christmas Cupboard MUST haves!!

Laneyboo

I vowed this year that i will not go and spend near on £200 on shopping for me and my OH and for those "people who come visiting" but never ever do! and so i will only be buying a few choice items but nothing like the shopping i would have before and so i wondered what you all regard as your must have items for having in the cupboard ovr the festive period.. im talking from squirty cream to cranberry sauce or from brazil nuts to Baileys.. whats your must haves?

I think mines is definetly hellmans and a jar of cranberry sauce!

oh and merry christmas everyone :beer:

mustafa_say_ving

Shop bought ........(shock horror) stollen ,There's only me that likes it so I have the whole lot myself....yummy. Never really fancied making my own ,too much faffing about just for me .

comping_cat

I always have a bottle of champagne for xmas day, also buy a selection of nuts, after eights, pringles and pick and mix!!!!!

sammy_kaye18

My christmas cupboard essentials

I tend to make sure the day before Xmas eve (23rd) is my baking/making day so i always have
- cakes,
- biscuits
- scones
- trifle
- jelly
- angel delight

* box of chocolates for those people who just 'appear' by to say merry Xmas
* plenty of juice for kiddies
* grown up choccies (after eights!) for thsoe dreaded evening visits
* crackers, cheese, general odds and sods so i can have a make shift picnic
type platter on hand in minutes
* few cheapy bottles of coke to be mixed with spirits for a few night time
drinkies
* small coffee, tea bags and hot chocolate for stand by - caters to all
peoples tastes then

Smiley_Mum

Puff pastry mince pies.

Goose fat, as recommended by Nigella Lawson for perfect potatoes, stuffing etc

In an interview on BBC1's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross two weeks ago Lawson hailed goose fat as the essential ingredient to guarantee the tastiest Christmas roast. The fat, which has the consistency of butter, has several culinary uses, but is best known for making perfect roast potatoes because it has a high burning point which means cooks can afford to turn up their ovens to the highest setting in order to produce the crispiest spuds.
Lawson also recommends using it to baste turkey, goose or chicken. It can also be included to bind and moisten stuffings such as sage and onion or sausagemeat and apricot.

beachbeth

I have to have asti spumanti chilled and ready to drink at lunchtime, cheese herb roule and port salut cheese and pickled onions for a supper snack and some lovely crusty bread to make sandwiches with the leftover turkey.

morlandbanks

At Christmas time I MUST have:

After Eights
Pringles
Mince Pies (making my own this year)
Lots of nuts (brazils are my favourite)
Lots of orange fruits (clemantines, satsumas etc)
Cheeses and crakers (various but must include Brie)
Baileys (SOMEONE will buy me a bottle. They always do! Yum)

actually, that's it. That's not too over the top is it? I don't really go mad.

My mum always had a massive bowl of fruit that we'd never seen before and weren't allowed to touch! She kept a beautiful bowl, but we had to have the ones that were in the cupboard so that we didn't ruin the 'display'!! We always had a massive bowl of nuts and we'd still have a bowlful long after the decorations came down. There would always be a choice of melon, pate or prawn cocktail for starter, followed by full roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings, followed by a choice of mince pies, Christmas pudding or trifle.
It was the same every year!! My parents live in Spain now so they're easy to avoid! lol.

We haven't really fallen into a routine yet. This will be our 11th Christmas together. We've been toghether 10 years this Christmas Eve! Wow, where did the time go?

This year we'll be having goose. Last year it was duck, but there are 4 of us and a duck doesn't really go around enough now that the little ones are getting bigger by the day! I roasted the potatoes in the duck fat and they were amazing!

I'm just babbling now...Must be all the excitement of Christmas! Can't wait this year. The little ones are 5 and 3 and I've bought my husband really great presents. I'm soooo excited about seeing them open thier presents!!

dorsetmiss_2

Whacking great lump of blue stilton + port, or black muscat.
Olives, pickled walnuts, gerkins, assorted pickles, chutney, celery, grapes, fresh figs, nuts, oatcakes, bath olivers, water biscuits....

for when everyone is sick and tired of all the sickly sweet stuff :j

[Deleted User]

My Christmas food shopping is no different to my normal 'rest of the year' food shopping apart from 3 'must have' items -

Small turkey (OH's 'must have' as I'm happy with chicken and we never eat turkey the rest of the year)

One very small square Christmas cake made by a local bakery - far better than any I could make and far superior to any supermarket. This is my 'must have' for this year.

One box of chocolate liqueurs! (bought as part of a 3 for 2 from Woolies about a month ago - have given the other two boxes away). Not sure which of us decided to keep those....

Pink.

Hi Laneyboo,

You should get more help with this on the Christmas board, so I'll move your thread over there.

Pink

lottee

I think we tend to get all the 'normal' things. ie: choccies, nuts, crisps etc etc. But my OH always insists that we stock our drink cupboard with almost every spirit available - not for us, but for everyone else! I try every year to explain that him & I don't drink spirits, so why an earth are we buying whisky, vodka etc??? 'Just in case someone fancies it' is his reply!

I hope I don't sound tight, but all of our friends / family bring their own drinks around any other time of the year, and vice versa, so why should Christmas be any different??!!