How to stop over-catering at Christmas

I am making the comparison because they're potatoes?

Let's try to make that simpler for you. When you eat a jacket potato, you eat half a potato for an ENTIRE meal.

When you have a plate full of food, 5 roasties is A LOT. If it was just the roasties, it might not be that much, but IN ADDITION with the rest of the food, it's a lot.

Is it easier for you now?

My post didnt' come out of nowhere, it was in reply to someone saying I never heard of such a thing. Either you have a family of sparrows or the roast potatoes weren’t very nice. It's pretty normal that it's a big portion already, that's all

My dogs enjoy a small plate of roast dinner for a few days afterwards, which takes care of most of the leftovers. I saved them some of the turkey and used the rest to make a few portions of biriyani, so that's dinner sorted for the next few nights. My Mum always cooks a bit more than is needed because she likes to feed the birds the leftover veg and yorkshires.

I don't do too many different veg and sides and to be honest a lot of frozen versions taste pretty decent. I don't think I'll bother buying fresh sprouts next year as we normally use frozen throughout the year and I didn't think the fresh ones were that much better. Carrots and potatoes are the only veg I would bother to buy fresh if I was cooking for lots of people.

I tend to avoid buying too much in the way of fresh puddings. This year I stocked up on ice cream and a vienetta which are still untouched in the freezer, as we've had enough sugar from eating chocolates and biscuits.

My mum grew up in poverty and my other grandparents where of the war mindset.

I think you need to plan for leftovers and see it as frugal planning. You can implement the same plan every year. You have a mindset of seeing it as wasteful abundance but this is literally how a lot of poor people plan.

So your left over meat isnt a waste. You planned it to only use the oven once instead of twice and this is now sandwiches, or a quick pasta or a pie filling

It was always your intention to have bubble and squeak with an egg on day 3 etc.

My nan could only afford meat, lots of fuel and cooking time on a sunday and few days meals were planned around the leftovers basically. My mum recalls a sort of bone broth with greens for dinner by Wednesday.

Soft cheese, fair enough. I don’t know how you would store this but blue stilton should be freezable. It’s surely worth investigating if you can freeze other blue cheeses.

Your name is better than mine.

Do the other people in your house feel the same, or do they enjoy having an abundance of leftovers available? As if it's just you then sure, try and pare it back. But it honestly sounds like you have a anxiety/stress issue rather than a leftovers one.

We call this Boxing Day pie. I love it

Op I hear you.

For me it’s buying a bit of everything causing the over catering. There just aren’t enough meal times for it all. Prawns, smoked salmon, blinis, a selection of cheeses, lots of pickles and chutneys, desserts as well as Christmas cake, pudding and Yule log.
I know that we will have lots of leftovers for sandwiches and bubble and squeak but forget that is already another complete meal.

Tbh, if you don't have leftovers after Christmas dinner then I'd feel like there wasn't enough. Christmas is not a meal I'd want to serve just enough at personally.
Personally I'd cut back on the massive amounts of snack foods and shitty selection boxes and mince pies people seem to acquire. But not be stingy with the proper meal.
I don't really buy myself much on the way of extra snacks now, I told myself that if I WANTED a load of biscuits or crisps I could buy them again from boxing Day, and I like baking and cooking so prefer to make an extra nice indulgent meals or snacks rather than mainlining Pringles.
Also, I have no self control, so the crisps I DID buy before Christmas were gone by the 22nd 🤣🤣

That doesn't sound like loads left to me!
If you can and will eat the leftovers (roast veg reheat very well) then what does it matter, it just saves cooking so much for a few days?

We over cater in our house but will be adding a sidenote to my existing Christmas food list for what to cut down on for next year. We had a lot of veg left over, potatoes coming out of our ears and I over bought on sweet treats which could be scaled back.

I love eating but I’m quite sick of the sight of food already and still so much left to eat!

Meal plan

we had turkey and baked ham and did loads of veg. Boxing Day had leftovers of ham plus newly cooked cauliflower cheese so not just the same. Following day Turkey curry.

if there was no leftovers we had plenty in freezer to cook a pasta bake or whatever

since Xmas eve we’ve had two ‘party food’ meals - a buffet where anything can be used up but also included some yellow sticker party finger food items

weve now eaten everything except mince pies which is DH’s dault for buying four boxes on Xmas eve

I have not hosted anyone thank god - just us 4 adults

Eh? First of all, shesaid roasties, which could imply halved or quartered potatoes that are cooked.

She then clarified this as small potatoes. So why are you going on about jacket potatoes? No one has mentioned jacket potatoes 🙄

I bought Tesco Maris Piper and then their 15p potatoes. And no one could tell the difference, they all tasted lovely.

So if some 15p potatoes get left behind for the next day, they will happily get eaten. Not a huge expense!

Also, 2 portions of Turkey crown left over is also not a disaster, that would make nice leftovers.

Most people are happy not to have cook again on 26 Dec and / of 27 Dec! What you see as disorganisation is actually organisation by many!

OP have you ever made a Christmas dinner leftovers pie? You put all your leftovers in a pie or flan dish with some gravy, top with pastry and bake. You can add mash and more gravy or just have a slice as a meal.

The reality is that a lot of people wont think twice about chucking food in the bin so dont see it as a 'problem'

I see that as a huge problem so I totally get you. I also play fridge chess and its a bit wearing and leaves no space and time to get other foods in and risks things getting stuck at the back and needing the bin

I freeze as much as I can or mix it up, like my soup today, and freeze that instead.

I don’t see what the problem is - we had loads of leftovers and just ended up having Christmas dinner three days in a row!

I do one big meal a day and the other meal is help a yourself to any leftovers meal plus a cheeseboard and crackers. Every thing Christmassy (apart from the cheese) was gone by Saturday morning.

As long as you don’t actually throw anything away it’s not a waste. I did 5 roast potatoes per head, all eaten but made DS do the entire bag so had about 30 left over. DS and his Mum ate 5 cold each for supper Christmas night, they are stick thin and have uber fast metabolisms. I then chopped up the 20 plus all the veg for bubble and squeak on Boxing Day. I have a lot of cheese left and we are now going away for New Year but it shouldn’t get wasted.

In my family 5 adults is more like 9 adults.

I solved one of the cheese situations - had cheeseboard earlier right next to air fryer making prawn toasts and ended up with a melted Brie and not in a good way .

@shapesandnoise i still don't understand though. Is your aim.to cook roast christmas dinner for 5 people & have zero waste at all? As in exact measurements? I think that's v hard to.do without undercatering.

If you are eating the leftover cooked & uncooked veg etc for other meals then how are you wasting money or food?

I made a pie with the leftovers.

Blue cheese, make a pasta sauce with it.

I had a spreadsheet with 5 days worth of meals on it.

I think when you are having "a feast", you have to do a bit of over-catering.

Carrots were 9p a bag, so there is really no need to be frugal. You can still put any leftovers in tupperware. Same with sprouts.

I like a bit of leftovers as it means I don't have to do a lot of cooking the next day.