Christmas menus and trying to buy it all reduced

Soworried

Here it is, my christmas menu.

Thankyou for worrying me Lynsey.

I am hoping to shop almost daily with my list of the items, to get this for as little as possible.
It will be frozen until the day before.

Anyone else want to try the challenge? Christmas as you want it for the smallest cost. :j

Christmas eve night.
Home made chunky vegetable soup served with homemade garlic bread and chilli croutons.
Followed by a mixed sliced meat and cheese board. Home made cheese straws, homemade cheese biscuits and shop bought mixed bread sticks and crackers.
Christmas morning
Home made cheese and onion muffins, filled with either smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or bacon, sausage and egg.
Christmas main lunch
Starters,
Smoked trout with watercress puree and sliced egg salad. Alternative is chicken liver and brandy pate on buttered toasts.
Main,
Beef joint cooked in an all grain mustard and honey dressing. Goose wrapped in bacon and stuffed with a home made sausagemeat and mushroom stuffing.
Cocktail sausages wrapped in streaky bacon. Yorkshire puddings made with added dried sage, Gravy, made from the meat juices, bread sauce, mint sauce, apple sauce, brussel sprouts cooked in cream, bacon and almonds. Green beans with caramilised shallots. Mashed potato with cream and black pepper, Roast potatoes in goose fat, garlic and rosemary. Boiled potatoes in saffron butter.
Balsamic roasted root vegetables.

Desserts.
Champagne and raspberry jelly, Christmas pudding with either rum or brandy sauce, lemon meringue or fruit platter.

Evening nibbles.
Dates with bacon, frosted ginger cookies, bacon and sweet potato nibbles, brie and cranberry croque monsieur, chicken satay bites, smoked salmon and cream cheese rolls, and chilli and lime sausage bites.

I still need to work on boxing day and new year as they depend on left overs and shortages really.

I would love to pinch other ideas, I mean read other peoples menus.

shimmigirl

wow - I'm coming to you for Christmas - sounds like a great spread!

I will share my menu with you in novemberish time - I love Christmas but have never started thinking about food this earliy. Mind you I did notice the boxe of wine gums and allsorts were bogof in tesco today and considered getting some to stash for our christmas food mountain

Soworried

shimmigirl wrote: »

wow - I'm coming to you for Christmas - sounds like a great spread!

I will share my menu with you in novemberish time - I love Christmas but have never started thinking about food this earliy. Mind you I did notice the boxe of wine gums and allsorts were bogof in tesco today and considered getting some to stash for our christmas food mountain

Same here, but this year I want my christmas, the way I want it but within a budget. So I need to start now.

Edwardia

One year we did manage to have a Christmas Day lunch that was entirely comprised of special offers so it is doable but it does take a lot of running around.

Good luck ! xx

Soworried

Edwardia wrote: »

One year we did manage to have a Christmas Day lunch that was entirely comprised of special offers so it is doable but it does take a lot of running around.

Good luck ! xx

Great, it is nice to know that it is achievable. Thankyou Edwardia. :j

Lynsey

A bit too early to be thinking of Xmas.

Our Xmas will be a much lesser event, but still wanting some of the luxuries.
Things like bacon for wraps and sausage meat etc should be easy to pick up reduced. Veg probably another easy target and even your Xmas meat if you time it right and freeze.
One thing we always get when reduced in price is the M&S Xmas cake. They always sell out when on offer and very quickly.
We still have one Xmas pudding left from last year!!!!!!!!!
Last year we also froze the soups and obviously that can be made from reduced stuff.

It would be nice if Lidl could do a half-price weekend Xmas event.
We also have £30 in Nectar points to [STRIKE]waste[/STRIKE] spend on "goodies".

Xmas??

There are only 116 days - 2 hours - 11 minutes to go and dropping.

http://www.xmasclock.com/

Lynsey

themull1

Christmas Eve, Chinese.

Christmas day, croissants/pain au chocolat, bucks fizz

christmas lunch, smoked salmon mousse starter, main - turkey and beef, pigs in blankets, carrots, sprouts, peas, asparagus, roasties, stuffing, gravy

christmas pudding/rum sauce, trifle or choc gateau and cream - or all three!

night time - sarnies, sweets, left over pudding.

boxing day - buffet, cold meats, roasties, left over sausages and bacon, sauces relishes, cheeseboard/crackers

Watchingthepennies

WOW what a fab menu! I LOVE Christmas, I LOVE food and I LOVE bargain hunting so I am really interested in getting on board with this challenge! I will post my thoughts once I have a chance to consider but in view of the OH it will have to be turkey and lots of it (although the turkey is already sitting in the freezer having bought it reduced from £29 to £7 earlier in the year-BBE date 2014!)

Owain_Moneysaver

Soworried wrote: »

Anyone else want to try the challenge? Christmas as you want it for the smallest cost. :j

Pepperoni pizza £1.50

Sorted.

Stephen_Leak

Either a bargain or reduced. We nearly had a clean sweep last year.

A "Four Bird Roast" (Chicken, turkey, duck and goose: imagine a mutant rolled pork joint) for £9.99 from ALDI was the centrepiece.

However, ASDA let us down on the cheeses. There was a very nice, "rolled back" selection on offer, but, as usual, it wasn't actually on sale anywhere. Thanks for nothing, Andy.

PS. An old Oz Clarke tip for Xmas wines. The traditional Xmas dinner is an "assault course" of flavours. For the main course, a Valencia Dry white will stand up to all the flavours without overpowering them. For the pudding, especially Xmas pudding, a sweet Moscatel de Valencia. Eat a mouthful of Xmas pud. Take a sip of the wine. Then the two together. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Now you have time to snap them up when they're on offer.

ms_night_ryder

So worried, wow! your days sound like a banquet! i want an invite please? remember when we met? over in the freezer challenge? it's me your good buddy, who's spending the christmas holidays with you! lol.

I can't take part in this challenge, as i just buy some chicken from costco as my contribution, then bring extras like schloer.

Good luck all, i think if you start from now, it's definately do-able.