The Great 'Cheap Christmas recipes' Hunt

RAS

That sounds really good, Wresting.

Other thoughts for savings:

1. Avoid those pre-prepared cut salads. They are in a controlled environment and will rot within a very short time once opened. Invest in a whole lettuce and keep it cool and outside the fridge. Peel off leaves as you need them and it will last days or even a week.

2. Make you own stuffing. Dried bread crumbled, chopped onion and flavourings. Fresh or dried sage, chopped apricots and walnuts, chopped apple and sage or thyme, chopped celery, apple and nuts, or the liver with sage. If you wish to add a skinned sausage, you can do so. Cook in small dishes separate from the bird.

Steve059

STUFFING

Makes enough for a 4.5kg to 5.5kg turkey

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken or turkey liver
200g of mushrooms
1 tablespoon of fresh parsley
1 onion
1 egg
50g of butter
100g of fresh white breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons of cranberry sauce
900g of sausage meat

METHOD

Chop the liver into pieces. Wipe the mushrooms clean, cut the ends off the stalks, then chop them into pieces. Chop the parsley. Peel the onion and cut it into slices. Break the egg into a bowl, pick out any bits of shell and beat the egg.

Put the butter into a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the liver, mushrooms and onions. Fry them for about 5 minutes until the meat is an even colour, with no pink bits.

Allow to cool, and place in a food processor with all the other ingredients. Process until thoroughly mixed.

TIPS

This can be made in advance and frozen.

meg72

thegrannysitter wrote: »

We always use the leftover turkey for soup, which everyone enjoys and you can even include some of the sprouts.

But my best tip is not to buy expensive crackers. I bought a packet of 12 at Tesco for £4.00 and they include all the essentials - paper hats to make everyone look silly, awful jokes to make everyone groan and plastic novelties which just get left on the table anyway.

I buy the 99p ones and dismantle, re-do with crepe or tissue paper add ribbon, sticker , add a chocolate from a bargain box of quality street, result very expensive looking crackers at very little cost.

Tricia_Mc

This soup is wonderful, makes a great meal, and I will happily eat it twice a day after Christmas until it runs out

Take the turkey meat, including the leg meat, off the bone as soon as you can and store it, covered, in the fridge. If necessary put a notice on it saying Keep Off!
Break up the carcass and simmer the bones in a large pan for a couple of hours to make stock. Or use a pressure cooker. Drain the stock, allow the bones to cool a little before picking any remaining meat off and adding to the stock.
To make the soup, add to the stock:
2-3 large potatoes, grated
3-4 large carrots, grated
1-2 large onions, grated or finely chopped
A few sticks of celery, de stringed and finely sliced or chopped. This is important to add flavour, even if you don't like celery.
All quantities are approximate.
Simmer for 30-45 mins, then add a small packet/ a couple of handfuls of Saxo sage and onion stuffing mix to thicken and flavour the soup. Simmer for a further 15 mins
You can add more turkey meat if you want.
You can add Christmas dinner leftovers but I can't be responsible for the taste if you do. If you want this soup to last several days you might not want to add sprouts.
Makes a very large pan full.

Upsy_Staffordshire

maman wrote: »

I totally agree with RAS about the planning. My rule is that I don't mind buying anything provided it won't be wasted. Anything frozen or packets or jars/cans is fine. So I'll have puddings or biscuits or crisps or jars of antipasti or pickles any freezable meats.


The only thing that's ever been wasted is salad leaves. A way round that is to buy baby spinach instead and use that up in cooking or buy tasteless iceberg lettuce which lasts for ages. Although I'm sure I saw Jamie Oliver putting cooking lettuce.;)

I saw that episode where Jamie Oliver suggests using lettuce in a stir fry. We had stir fry last night so we decided to give it a go. We chopped up the last bits of a lettuce and put it into our stir fry and it was great for bulking it up and reduced waste at the same time. We will definitely be doing it again because we always end up throwing lettuce away x