What additions to Christmas Dinner do you have that others consider strange?

[MyGazeboisLeaking]

Off the back of the Thanksgiving thread (I'm drooling!), I thought about our Christmas dinner.

Over the years, we've added the following that have now become standard:

Cauliflower cheese
Steamed red cabbage & raisins
Sweetcorn (for me!)

What additions do you have?

@GoodbyeToCare - I stole the idea from Kyloe restaurant in Edinburgh when DH and I visited a few years back.
One of the starters was haggis in Yorkshire puddings so I stole it.

We have everything!
Turkey
Broccoli
Roast carrots and parsnips
Peas and sweetcorn
Pigs in blankets
Yorkshire pudding
Stuffing
Apple sauce
Roast and mash potatoes

Cheesy leeks
Yorkshire puddings as DD loves them

Thes rest I think is standard fayre

Christmas pudding with evap milk. Bloody LOVELY

I'm with those who think cheese sauce doesn't belong anywhere near a roast :)

We have always roasted any vegetable that can handle it - roast onions have been my particular favourite since childhood. The challenge at Christmas becomes rotating pans to get enough vegetables roasted because I insist on copious leftovers (we're often only cooking for 4). Generally do potatoes/onions/carrots/parsnips and butternut squash. Sprouts and ideally a 2nd green item.

Mashed potato only makes an appearance as a stuffing base - substituting for breadcrumbs as I'm coeliac. Usually I aim to do a chestnut based stuffing (most baked separately) and my non-meat eating daughter is happy that she doesn't need anything additional.

At some point growing up, my parents discovered hot smoked trout and that became a favourite Christmas started for many years (also in Australia).

I love how this thread has dredged up alot of controversy with regards to cauliflower cheese 😂

@MrsMouse03

We always have apple sauce with our Christmas dinner

We do too!

We sometimes have haggis instead of stuffing. Always mash and roasties not either/or

We have roast lamb with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, mash, yorkshires, corn on the cob, pigs in blankets, carrots and peas, buttered leeks and gravy. Mint sauce and Apple sauce. It's not the combination for everyone but we like it.

Cauliflower cheese and mashed potato = children’s supper! Yorkshire pudding also has no place in Christmas meal - bread sauce with poultry and game.

We have several types of stuffing including one that others would find odd which is watercress and lemon zest. My mum made that since I was a kid so to me it tastes of Christmas.

@RandomMess

We have a hot buffet of what everyone wants - completely random!!!

This is what we do too. It makes for a strange menu, but everyone is happy.

Also when the family are bored of turkey - alternate years - we have roast partridge.

I haven’t rtft so hopefully no one already has said it, but I give you creamy sweetcorn. Sweetcorn in a cheese sauce. Sounds wrong but is so good, it’s my aunties secret weapon.

@LH1987

I love how this thread has dredged up alot of controversy with regards to cauliflower cheese 😂

That's how wars get started 😂😂😂

@FluffMagnet

My weird family always serve their cranberry sauce dolloped into a tinned peach half with their Christmas dinner. My gran saw it in a magazine many decades ago, and has served it ever since. Even as a child I realised it was weird and refused the peach (love cranberry sauce though).

Mash has no place on a roast plate IMO!

Oh my god -'that sounds AMAZING.

I absolutely love sweet and savoury combos.... I'm definitely going to try a tinned peach with tomorrow's roast as a trial run.

We do lamb, pork (from Christmas Eve) , roasties, mash, carrot and Swede, broccoli, honey parsnips, sprouts, giant pigs in blankets, sausage meat stuffing loaf wrapped in streaky bacon , home made Yorkshire puddings and copious amounts of thick delicious gravy. All the sauces. Apple, mint, cranberry, mustard. Then normally a posh cheesecake and/out a chocolate thing for the kids.

No starter, no fuss. Just lots of delicious food.

I do remember one person on here saying that their man started a tradition of putting a can of tomato soup on the Christmas dinner and so they all did it and it became tradition. That one made me a bit 😬😱

Yorkshires here, which MIL was appalled by!
But DC love them, so why not?

Potato and swede mashed together and known as Scottish crooglie!

We are usually around the PILs for Christmas Day for the usual Christmas turkey lunch with all the trimmings, which is great for all of us except for my eldest (18). For as I can remember DS has never liked a roast meal, so my MiL makes him a homemade Cornish pasty which is served up with a sprig of holly 🎄

We basically have everything! Starter is prawn cocktail for those who eat it/picky party food (we have the starter at 1ish, then dinner is at 4ish)

Beef for main with a small turkey crown...mash and roasties, Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets and then whatever veg we will all eat. 2 kinds of stuffing (packet and homemade).

We usually have turkey (although maybe goose this year as fewer here) and have roast and mash, parsnips, carrots, sprouts, gravy. Pigs in blankets and some blankets without pigs as OH doesn’t like sausages (weirdo).

Instead of stuffing we have white pudding on the side (I’m Scottish) -it’s oatmeal and onions and spices, delicious. I don’t live in Scotland any more so we either bring it back with us when we visit or I order online.

The staple sides here are red cabbage, roasties, honey carrots and parsnips, sprouts with bacony bits and cocktail sausages. 2014 aka the year we forgot to take the cocktail sausages out of the freezer is mentioned in tones of great horror every year. Half the family doesn't even eat meat so we'll generally do fish or mushroom wellington instead.
We'll never do cauliflower cheese, peas or yorkshire puddings. We go to my aunt every year for boxing day for christmas dinner no 2 and the starter without fail is always prawn cocktail or melon balls.

My friend serves their Christmas pudding with rice pudding instead of brandy sauce.

I don't add stuff, I take it away...
No turkey, cannot stand it.
But I do make (from scratch) several stuffings, cranberry sauce and bread sauce.
This year, as I have a jar of goose fat to use up, I might do roast potatoes.

We have leeks in cheese sauce instead of cauliflower. Cauli is for normal roasts, leeks are for Christmas.