Kirstys handmade Christmas... !!!!!!!!

PasturesNew

Cleaver wrote: »

Pastures, my lovely, I'm going to tread carefully here.

I'm obviously not saying that it isn't possible to do a Christmas dinner for a family for £20. If you go for a budget part of a turkey, have some cheap veg with no herbs or extras, no additional meat, no trimmings, no alcohol, no pudding etc. then I reckon you could probably do it all for under a tenner for four people.

What I'm a bit surprised at is your apparent surprise that people could spend £50 on a Christmas dinner for a family and your shock that this would be possible. Surely you've seen typical family dinners and know what people generally have and can see that £50 would be on the more budget-side of things? I'm cooking for five this year, so my Christmas dinner is likely to be something along the following lines:

Starter
Smoked salmon - posh alert!

Main food items
Turkey from the butchers (first time in years)
A gammon ham - SRSLY, isn't one turkey enough?
Potatoes
Parsnips
Sprouts
Carrots
Sweede
Red Cabbage - never seen that at Xmas
Sausages (enough for some whole, others for sausage meat stuffing) - this is something I've only seen at works' Xmas dinners and on adverts
Bacon (wrap round sausages....mmmm....) - see above

Ingredients to cook other stuff
Flour, milk, beer and eggs (yorkshire pudding) - beer? P155head!
Butter, bread, sage, onion, chesnut, eggs (two types of stuffing) - I'll let you off "two types", but it comes out of a packet
Gravy (I go for pre-prepared what with everything else going on) - granules in our house

Extras to cook the above with
Lemons - new info
Oranges - new info (can't even begin to think where you'd stick an orange, or is that some after dinner game)
Garlic - new info
Rosemary - new info
Tarragon - new info
Dill - new info
Parsley - new info
Salt
Pepper
Goose fat - new info
Vegetable oil

General Extras (will generally buy ready-made)
Cranberry sauce (gotta have it) - nobody eats it in our house
Redcurrent sauce - new info, didn't even know it existed (or what it is/why)
Bread Sauce - had it once, about 30 years ago, not impressed

Pudding
Christmas Pudd - too full
Custard - too full
Chocolate log (need some options) - too full, we stopped buying those in about 1974

Drink
Bottle of champagne for pre-meal - we never have this
A couple of beers - P155head
Two bottles of wine (you say that wine isn't Christmas dinner, but 99% of households will have wine with Christmas dinner) - You're srsly lucky to even recognise a dinner after this lot. We've never bothered with wine really.
Bottle of brandy (to pour on pudding) - posh alert!! Never seen that, ever, anywhere. Heard about it, on the telly.
Bottle of port (generally for the evening) - posh alert!! Never had it.

Other Stuff
Napkins - posh alert!!
Crackers (gotta have 'em for the hats) - cheapo does the trick.
Foil - already got that, it's essential for the usual diet of oven chips.


Obviously with all the above we'll have leftovers going right through the week, so it a strange way it's quite an MSE-stylee meal. But I'd estimate that all the above will cost us around £150. For a celebration meal for five, which will also feed the two of us for quite a few meals through the week, that seems pretty decent.

But I'm just pointing out that surely you know that the above type of shopping list / menu is considered the norm for most people, and that £20 on a small section of a turkey, some veggies and pretty much nothing else whatsoever isn't the norm? I know some people will always struggle and possibly won't even have anything special for Christmas (which is sad), but that's the minority of cases.

I've never met most people. It wasn't until I came to MSE that I had ANY idea just how well off/posh a lot of people are. I've only once ever had a Xmas dinner that wasn't at my parents' house, so have no experience of Xmasses of other people.

Cleaver

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've never met most people. It wasn't until I came to MSE that I had ANY idea just how well off/posh a lot of people are. I've only once ever had a Xmas dinner that wasn't at my parents' house, so have no experience of Xmasses of other people.

We're not well off or posh to be honest. And the link I put up earlier said that the average spend is £170. Our budget would probably be around £150 so the dinner I put up above would presumably be a less than average dinner in terms of cost.

I can't be bothered to go in to all of your questions (and I mean that in a nice way), but with the orange I'd grate some of the zest in to one of the stuffings and I'd use some of the juice with the red cabbage. The lemon would go inside the turkey to give a bit of extra flavour and would again be used with zest in the stuffing. The garlic would go with the potatos (and maybe a couple of cloves in the turkey). Forgot to add parmesan cheese to the list which would go on the parsnips - try it, it's lovely. Christmas is the only time of the year I buy goose fat as roasties are AMAZING in the stuff. As for all the herbs, pretty much anyone cooking to a barely decent standard uses fresh herbs.

Again, I'm not saying that all of my list is necessary and I know you can do it for £20. Just making the point that away from MSE it's a pretty normal list, which is evident by the fact that it could all be got for less than the average Christmas dinner costs.

Lastly, we don't consume everything on that list in one meal, especially the alcohol. But I like to be hospitable and give people options and choices at Christmas, so I do lots of stuff. That and the fact that I absolutely love cooking and the idea of being in the kitchen with family and friends on Christmas day is just bliss. To be honest, I can't think of many things I'd prefer to spend £150 on.

Cleaver

lostinrates wrote: »

there is an economy of scale at christmas...both the meal and the left overs IMO.

I don't think cleaver's list is wide of the mark....not mine replicated sure, but not particuarly extavagant for the time of the year. In fct, I don't think its christmas lunch itself where the cost is so difficult to budget for for many but the associated stuff people graze on in addition to meals over the season..one ''upgraded roast dinner'' is less difficult to budget for than the rest ....and my guess is where most of the christmas bulge comes from too...

Very true. We don't go too big on the whole 'massive Christmas shop'. But we're not massive drinkers and don't have sweet tooths either, so there's not a lot else.

Having said that, during December there's always a stock of nice cheeses, pate and crackers about. Yum.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've never met most people. It wasn't until I came to MSE that I had ANY idea just how well off/posh a lot of people are. I've only once ever had a Xmas dinner that wasn't at my parents' house, so have no experience of Xmasses of other people.

PN, in all seriousness, do hve an interst in it...a more ''adventurous'' style of cooking or eating than you are used to? If not it seems a bit pointless wondering about others' and if so, why not take up cooking as an adventure? Eating with variety, using herbs and a bit of citrus zest need not be ''posh'' or exclusive.

Cleaver

lostinrates wrote: »

Eating with variety, using herbs and a bit of citrus zest need not be ''posh'' or exclusive.

Agreed. Chopping up some rosemary and drizzling lemon on meat before you cook it is cheap and has been done by people in all kitchens for years and years. And I'm not 100% sure, but one suspects that people used herbs, garlic, fruit etc. with meat in the past as a cheap way to enhance flavour, so it was probably 'poorer' people that did it. I know that my Nan, who's childhood and early life was probably one of the poorest I've heard of, would have a herb garden at home so they had free flavourings for food.

And sorry Pastures, but a pack of salmon isn't 'posh' nowadays.

Cleaver

robmatic wrote: »

Cleaver, Christmas at your gaff sounds like a rather enjoyable day!

You're welcome to join us. After lunch we all sit round the table for a game of 'Bulls vs Bears'. I love board games.

julieq

One small Kelly Bronze Turkey in itself is £50+ - a £20 one is going to be mass produced, full of water and not great quality. Honestly, when you've tried a Kelly Bronze there's no way back.

robmatic

Cleaver wrote: »

You're welcome to join us. After lunch we all sit round the table for a game of 'Bulls vs Bears'. I love board games.

I like board games too but sometimes they go on for years.

chewmylegoff

Cleaver wrote: »

You're welcome to join us. After lunch we all sit round the table for a game of 'Bulls vs Bears'. I love board games.

Round mine we all log on to the internet and desperately ramp precious metals.

robmatic

julieq wrote: »

One small Kelly Bronze Turkey in itself is £50+ - a £20 one is going to be mass produced, full of water and not great quality. Honestly, when you've tried a Kelly Bronze there's no way back.

Trademarks aside, opting for a free range turkey* is worth it. My folks usually get one from one of the local farmers who raises a small number every year. It might be more expensive but it's a different meal if you can actually taste the meat. I suppose if budget is an issue there is always the option of being thriftier with the accompaniments (ditching those M&S pre-made things for example).

* Was going to say 'nicely reared bird' here but I think that's a different conversation!