Spill the beans... on cooking Xmas dinner for the first time

Dinglebloke

I love Asda ready made stuffing from the cooked meats counter, chickens etc. Can I freeze it or is it not advisable please, thanks

jonesy1976

Do home made soup for 1st course on Xmas eve and warm it up next day. one third down already!

penarthian

Good tasty hot gravy can cover up any little mistakes. If your turkey is lucky enough to have giblets inside, the neck will be in the neck end and the liver etc will be in a bag inside the body. Wash giblets in salted water and then put into a large pan with a carrot, an onion a bay leaf and either a bouquet garni or a few sprigs of parsley and thyme. Bring to the boil and then simmer for a couple of hours. This will give a lovely Christmasy smell. Once this is cooked and you can simmer it for hours, remove the veg and giblets , what is left is a lovely tasty stock. Additions to this can be port, sherry, but my favourite is red currant jelly.
It will need thickening, I use cornflour mixed with port but my daughter uses Bisto as it thickens easily.
Taste the gravy, add salt and pepper even a stock cube if it needs it.
I use a steamer for all carrots, Brussels and a slow cooker for keeping gravy or Christmas pudding hot. Both keep the hob free .
I suggest you look on YouTube to see how to carve a turkey!
Happy Christmas

PipneyJane

As others have said, prepare the day/night before so all you have to do is shove the turkey in the oven. We do our Christmas on Christmas Eve (Polish style), so I'll probably stuff my goose on Friday night then stick it in the fridge on the baking tray. Take it out about an hour before you put it in the oven to bring it up to room temperature before roasting.

Set up your oven so that you can roast the bird on one shelf and the veggies on another. I usually put the bird on a low shelf and then the veggies on a shelf at the top. However, I have an electric fan oven so your mileage may vary.

I put the stuffing into the cavity and add an extra half an hour to the cooking time to compensate. For goose, duck and turkey, I roast at 180C for half an hour a kilo, with an extra half an hour added for luck plus the time for the stuffing. For goose or duck, I'll use two roasting pans to capture the fat moving the bird from one to the other hourly. I'll start the bird in one pan then an hour later transfer it to the second and put it back in the oven. Meanwhile, I'll drain the first pan into a large bowl and set that aside. An hour later, I'll transfer the bird back to the first pan, put it back in the oven and drain the second pan. When it's time to put the veggies in the oven to roast, I'll baste them in the drained fat.

Regarding veggies, this Christmas I'll be roasting potatoes, an onion each (add with the potatoes), a bulb of garlic each (wrap in foil add with one hour to go), parsnips and pumpkin (leave skin on, cut into large chunks and add with the potatoes). Most of the veggies will go into the oven maybe an hour before I remove the bird for the last time and will be in a separate baking dish. Excluding the garlic, they'll get roasted for an hour and a half. (For the last half hour, birdy will be out of the oven, tented in foil and left to rest.)

I'm all in favour of only having roasted veggies to accompany Christmas Dinner. Apart from taking, say, 20 minutes to peel them all and par boil the potatoes it means that I don't have any last minute veg prep to do. (And all the veg can be prepped the day before.) I'll only need to go into the kitchen on an hourly basis to drain the fat off the goose.

florere

Remember it doesn't have to be perfect, it's a big sunday dinner, as long as the turkey is properly defrosted and cooked, your guests have come to enjoy your company not eat perfect resturant food, have a laugh. enjoy.

chaplaincy

This will be my first time cooking Christmas dinner for my family.
All are great cooks and I'm checking lists already and then again.

I realise I shouldn't have a drink till I'm eating my Xmas dinner but I think I'm gonna need it!

I'm going to keep it simple and enjoy the day. :beer::rotfl:

gg2731

mummyyummy wrote: »

Spill the beans... on cooking Xmas dinner for the first time[IMGRIGHT]http://images.moneysavingexpert.com/images/spillthebeans2.gif[/IMGRIGHT]

Putting on an Xmas meal for the whole family is stressful for even the most seasoned of cooks, so give us tips on how to ease the pressure. Thanks to mummyyummy for starting this thread!

Back to the original post ...

cooking for 7, cooked lots of Sunday dinners but never done xmas-yet! Does anyone have any tips to make it as stress-free as poss....hoping to eat 3pm approx.. Ideally I would like to prepare as much as I can on xmas eve so its just a case of heating rather than cooking on xmas day so more time playing with the kids and their new toys....traditional turkey dinner :jnothing fancy (!)
thankyou :beer:

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Make your gravy in the morning and keep in a pre-heated flask, just pour into gravy boat to serve, 1 job done and 1 space extra on cooker!
Make cranbery/bread sauces now and freeze, just defrost on day, saves time and fridge space.
Prepare and blanche sprouts, chill and freeze, just quickly stir fry with (pancetta and chestnuts) whatever you like, to serve.:j

gordothegopher

An idea that's gone down well in our house the past few years is to serve your starter (soup, prawn cocktail, whatever) around 1pm, and then let people get up and do their own thing for a few hours before sitting back down at 3/4pm for the main course. It takes a bit of pressure off the cook to have the mains ready straight after the starter, and your guests will appreciate not having to starve themselves until later in the afternoon, and getting a bit of a break before digging in to a big meal! It also gives you a bit of leeway if you get your timings wrong as people will have already had something to eat.

Other things, people have already mentioned ... prepare as much as you can the night before, get people to help greet guests, take coats, pour drinks, set the table etc. Write out a plan of timings for everything and get yourself a timer to keep you on track. Most smart phones have multipler timers on them to you can set one for each thing you are cooking.

enjoy!

erik99_2

Whaddaya mean, you threw potatoes away!!! Call yourself a money-saver? What's wrong with putting them in the frig and frying them up for another meal?

telboyo

mummyyummy wrote: »

what veg do you prep? im one of those 'on the day cooks' hence the post in the 1st place, this sounds very up my street but im scared ill serve up a big dollop of food poisoning on xmas day if i do this.
ive decided veg we are gonna eat is potatoes (roast & mash) sprouts, carrots....(trying to keep simple-ish) i wil be doing stuffing for the turkey too...so can these all be prepared in advance? thankyou

You'd be hard pushed to give anyone food poisoning with pre-prepared veg