Christmas food successes and failures

[SinkGirl]

I thought it would be a nice idea to have a thread where people share recipes / products that worked well and those that didn’t so we all know for next year. Here’s mine:

Successes:
Nigella’s perfect roast potatoes (I make these every year and they are always perfect, although I do parboil them for a bit longer, 8 mins once the water has boiled rather than 4) - the semolina makes them

This Yorkshire recipe - they came out perfectly www.delish.com/uk/cooking/recipes/a29557764/how-to-make-yorkshire-puddings/

M&S Porchetta joint - takes a bit of extra prep with salting the rind but worth it, it was lovely

Bluetooth meat thermometer with two probes - saved my meat as if I’d followed the instructions everything would have been overcooked

Mary Berry’s easy chocolate brownie recipe - so easy, made on Christmas Eve, kids had it heated up for pudding with ice cream. Now I get to eat the rest :D
thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-brownies

Failures:
M&S lamb shoulder - even using a meat thermometer so it was cooked to medium it was not great. And it was pretty tiny.

M&S garnish pack - pigs in blankets all unravelled and stuffing balls didn’t cook anywhere near as quickly as they should

How about you? Any good tips or things to avoid next year?

39 weeks pg so I used a LOT of cheats this year.

Big hit - Aunt Bessie's duck fat roast potatoes. Genuinely better than the real thing.

Miss- Waitrose honey and mustard roast parsnips. Soggy and disappointing for not much labour saved.

We had a small fire when a piece of cooker hood fell onto the job. #smoke alarm.. all put out with tea towels

Hit- brined turkey and a meat thermometer- we avoided a seriously overcooked turkey , that even brining couldn't save- as I'd genuinely have cooked it an extra 45 minutes at least. It's really true that we've all been over cooking our turkeys all these years. Free range good quality birds do take much less cooking . It was brilliant

I made bread sauce this year. A revelation, with the gravy and cranberry it was beautiful

Hairy bikers chestnut sage stuffing- loved by all

Misses- nigellas toast maple parsnips- came out dry and overly sweet for us.

Gf and df Home made Yorkshire puddings were fabulous straight out the oven...not so good warmed up on xmas day.
They are from glutenfreecuppatea and made with cornflour and unsweetened almond milk. I put salt and pepper in the mixture also
I didn’t have any other oil just olive, I’d like to try them with duck fat another time.

My sil beef cooked slowly in the cooker with red wine always a hit
Our own gf pigs in blankets were fab
I was a pig with them

I usually do everything from scratch, order meat from the butcher etc but I’ve got a really bad back this year so did whatever I could to make life easier.

Used disposable foil trays for everything except the roast potatoes and the Yorkshires. Feel bad about that but it has saved a lot of soaking and scrubbing!

Bloody thermometer wasn't working - so ended up over cooking the meat.

It was the first year I’ve cooked
Christmas dinner - usually my ex and son have made it if we have a roast.

I really enjoyed the fact I got to do it alone. The meat was perfect - luckily I went by the meat temp and not how long the packet said to cook! The potatoes came out lovely.

It was all good except perhaps a little
colder by time I got it all out than I was happy with.

Generally I don’t like cooking so everyone is surprised when I do lol.

Homemade vegan yorkies for DD, other guests didn't even realise they were vegan.

Only real fail was not enough Pigs in Blankets for left overs

Jamie’s tiramisu was not nice 😢too sweet and the texture was all wrong. It was nothing like a tiramisu!

We had m&s beef Wellington for a wee change from turkey. Ordered this (pic 1), got this (pic 2) but thought ok, still looks big enough, opened it looked like this (pic 3), thought meat not sealed in pastry hope it's OK.

Cooked it looked like this. Lines show where the meat was.

When sliced was a soggy wet mess.

Hit - Cashew nut roast was really lovely.

Fail - ran out of plain flour for my yorkshire puddings so had to use some self raising. They didn't rise at all & just looked like flat fairycakes. They tasted nice but it was so annoying as I'm normally good at them!

No one fancied Xmas pudding but I could have eaten some trifle so will make some next year.

Forgot to buy shloer so had squash instead, ok but not special enough. Didn't fancy wine.

Home made cinder toffee, coated in plain chocolate (fair trade). Silicone ice cube trays made it much easier to turn out!

Waitrose recipe from food magazine for roast parsnips was horrific - resulted in incineration. Thought the cooking time was too long, thankfully had spare batch but they were a bit soggy. Spuds were fab, M&S boned and stuffed crown was fine, Good Housekeeping recipe for roast root veg pithiver was brilliant. Profiteroles, trifle and red cabbage all great - parsnips were the one let down.

I don't know how to link but Coca-Cola glazed ham from southyourmouth.com was amazing and easy to do- just chuck it all in a roasting bag.

I wasn't really feeling Christmas this year (Dad died last April), so just bought a €10.50 (half price) 2 kg frozen turkey crown from Tesco back in November. It was really, really good! 2 of us ate about half a breast, which leaves plenty for leftovers and dinner today. Also Tesco Finest fresh turkey gravy was good, as was their unsmoked ham which I boiled, glazed and roasted - with a very moist result. No failures yet!

I don't work for Tesco, btw, I just shop there (in Ireland, when in the UK I use Ocado)!

Turkey - cooked in a tent of foil Delia style, beautifully moist and the tray stays clean if you are careful lifting the foil out. I have done it this way for about 10 years, this year I invested in a pair of meat forks to lift the turkey out, made it much easier.

Jamie Oliver make ahead gravy stock, another firm favourite here, makes perfect gravy.

Nigel Slater's Christmas pudding - never made one before but I find shop ones too dark and rich, this was lovely, light in colour and texture.

Bread sauce - never liked it because of the cloves (only ever had my mum's homemade). Used a packet mix this year and it just tasted of mild onion and garlic, lovely.

Fails - Yorkshires. Every bloody time.

Pigs in blankets / sprout combo was lush.

Bake Pigs in blankets in oven with some sliced onion and garlic. Saute in butter some shredded sprouts when the onions have caramelised and the sausages are beginning to brown mix the sprouts in and bake together in oven for 5 mins.
Yum.

Nigella's parsnips in maple syrup are great. Also the BBC carrots and onions in red wine and balsamic (done on the hob). Delia's bread sauce is legendary in our house. No disasters thankfully.

YY to Delia silver foil tent method. It's the first year I've used it (just Google Delia's Christmas dinner) and the turkey was lovely. The timings were just right right, if not slightly over - I would definitely recommend checking turkeys before the timings in recipes. I agree with others that we are over-cooking. The timer popped out about 10 minutes before the Delia timings.

I burnt the parsnips but have only myself to blame - I forgot to take them out on time.

Trifle.
make cake from scratch and soak in fruit juice
Make jelly with gelatin (or agar for veggos) and cranberry juice
make custard
whip cream
Layer adding fresh berries into jelly layers
Fresh berries and grated chocolate on top.

So good!

I roasted two ducks. One today and one yesterday. I did one the traditional, horizontal way, and it was really good. (Sour cherry sauce - OMG!)

Today I was experimental and shoved a glass bottle (cleaned and sterilised sparkling apple juice) up it’s bum and roasted it horizontally. It was much faster and more evenly roasted and was oh, so crispy! (Rubbed with salt and Chinese five spice and served with blood orange & Cointreau sauce.)
Cleaning the oven this morning and tomorrow morning - Industrial-sized fail
Both lots of duck fat potatoes were a hit according to my son, although he’s basically a pelican. (I don’t eat potatoes)
The greens I left on the stove yesterday were a massive fail. They smelled like old men’s shoes.
Today’s were delicious. (Broccolini with slivered almonds and salted butter - low carb, but definitely not low cholesterol!)
I was too full to consider thinking about dessert... I am STILL too full to consider dessert. My kids consider me a failure as a mother. There is ice cream in the freezer and they can get it themselves.

Burnt parsnips here too , fortunately only the ones nearest the element. Saved enough for us all ( just)

I don’t think we had any misses this year. The cheesy mashed potatoes was a huge hit with hungry teenagers/early 20s people. My sister and I cooked together and only made so much to bulk out the meal as easy to do. She also made the best red cabbage ever in the world 😍 which reheated in the microwave perfectly. One of the ovens wouldn’t work so we only had one, but did the beef first and then the roast spuds and veg Wellington while it rested.

Ah, the miss was that we drank too much fizzy wine and found concentrating on what we were doing hard