Any cooking problems at Christmas.

Lilyplonk

I've read so many stories of beautifully cooked Christmas Lunches that you've all had. It got me wondering though .............. did anybody 'hit any snags'.

Mine this year was the length of time that my chicken took to cook - it was darn well ridiculous .

It was the ASDA ExtraSpecial Free Range Corn Fed and weighed in at around 4 and a half pounds.

It was in the oven for over three hours (Gas5 / NO STUFFING in cavity) and I was :eek: to STILL find blood around the legs/thighs/close to the carcase - I'd had it in/out the oven a couple of times checking for pink juices .

Everything else was 'ready' (carrots / broccoli / cauli / parsnips / mash / roasties / stuffing / gravy), as there were only two of us, I managed to just carve from the breast on both sides.


Just so pleased that it didn't happen while I was 'catering for the hoards' - the thoughts of keeping a crowd happy while waiting hours for their lunch would mortify me :o.

Disjointed everything, put the remainder back into the roasting tin, covered with foil and put it back in the oven while we were eating [STRIKE]lunch[/STRIKE] - [STRIKE]dinner[/STRIKE] - supper. Fortunately, it was all OK by the time I'd cleared the table to do the dishes. Eventually removed all meat from bones and put on plate, cling-filmed when cool and put into fridge.

Carcase is now in freezer ready for stock-making at some stage. DS1 is visiting later today - bringing his mil's turkey carcase with him - so that can join the other one :T.

Tiglath

My top oven smoked and then bust, so I had to put the turkey crown and lamb in the main oven, but it all worked out fine in the end.

ragz_2

I forgot to serve two of the veg dishes (I blame MIL as she was 'helping' serve up!). So now we have a red cabbage mountain!

DundeeDoll

Happy christmas lilyplonk having had the undercooked turkey problem before (we ended up carving what we needed, putting it in a dish with gravy and zapping in the microwave while the rest of the turkey cooked on) for the last 2 years we've got turkey breast and brown boned joints from l!dl. Very nice. Ok so no lish turkey stock at the end but much less stresrul (and no messy bird to strip when the rest of the family is snoozing in front of xmas tv).

carlamarie_2

Turkey took two hours longer to cook than I anticipated, why do I read the cooking times on these things? Why?
Luckily I could see how far off it was so i went by eye as to what time to put the rest on. Luckily everything else went like a dream

cyclingyorkie

Came to sorting out the veg and I asked DH where he had put the new potatoes.....


'What new potatoes?' was his reply.......


cue a quick decision to swap to baked spuds - luckily it was early enough in the process....

angeltreats

None at all! Other than far too many leftovers and I'll have to think up ideas to use it all up.

Crowdpleaser

All went fine except that I have a small single oven which only really cooks on top shelf so was veg roulette in there lol. Oh and tye mountain of roast potatoes could easily feed a small country. Uses for leftover potatoes? X

YORKSHIRELASS

Well I decided to cheat a bit and bought a bag of Aunt Bs frozen roast veg (carrot, swede and parsnips). Supposed to take 30 minutes in the oven, an hour later and it was still looking pale, soggy and unappetising.

I ended up throwing it in a dish and putting it on the table anyway. It wasnt a huge success it has to be said although the kids both put a helping on their plate bless them. There was plenty of other stuff so it didnt really matter.

bluebag

Crowdpleaser wrote: »

All went fine except that I have a small single oven which only really cooks on top shelf so was veg roulette in there lol. Oh and tye mountain of roast potatoes could easily feed a small country. Uses for leftover potatoes? X

Roast potatoes freeze well, don't add any fat to reheat them in the oven.
The other thing I do with them is chop them up cold to add to salad.

And slice the big ones in half, scoop out the potato and mash with a little cheese and chopped bacon, put in a hot oven till the cheese melts.

I never have left over roasties these days sadly, the rotters scoff em all.

Frith

Mine didn't go too badly apart from the turkey thigh. I wouldn't buy one again! In the past, for me and 2 sons, I have grilled turkey fillets (or chicken) but I thought a bigger joint might be better this year.


Well, I cooked it for 75 minutes as it said on the packaging and the roast potatoes and parsnips were done, the carrots, red cabbage, stuffing, gravy and bread sauce. And sausages.


Carved the turkey and it was raw in the middle! Raw to the point that it would probably have taken another 30 minutes.


So I chopped slices off the sides, bunged them back in the oven on a baking tray with the sausages and blasted them for about 10 minutes then served it all!