Alternative Christmas Dinner Ideas

[SilkyMoonfaceandTheSaucepanMan]

I really don't fancy battling through the shops for a turkey, and we just don't like it enough to care too much.

Thought it would actually be rather nice to change up the menu too this year. I've looked and have lost myself in the hole of recipes, and so thought I'd ask for ideas on here instead.

Does anyone do the Christmas dinner without the roast? What do you normally have?
If not, what would you have if you swapped it over?

Steak!

What cut @peachypetite? What would you serve with it?

My dream would be loads of seafood and tapasy bits, plus fizz. Or a party food buffet, just grazing rather than a big set meal.

We're actually having ready prepared food from a barbecue restaurant delivered to heat up, with a prawn cocktail starter. Plus we have some party food, which we'll probably have on Christmas Eve.

It is normally fillet of beef in my house. Easy to prep. Fast to cook. No hassle with carving and fitting into oven.

You're barbecue restaurant idea is genius, @BarbaraofSeville.
What was your order?

A bit of beef sounds lovely, is that with all the trimmings, @purplecorkheart?

Having discussed with the family it seems that the hours of effort I’ve put into Christmas lunch for the last x no of years have been wasted! They think pigs in blankets toad in the hole is better, as long as there was still roast potatoes!
But, I’m cooking, so holding my ground and traditional Christmas dinner with 7 veg stands. I’ve caved and agreed to do Yorkshire’s and will do sodding pigs in blankets toad in the hole for new year.

My mum is bringing a steak and ale casserole and I’m doing the sides. Probably roast potatoes, roasted sprouts, carrots, tender stem broccoli and cauliflower Alfredo.

I’m vegetarian so will skip the casserole and have the sides. Contemplating Yorkshire puddings too even though they don’t go😂

I’m making pecan pie cheesecake for dessert.

I'm doing

Fillet of beef
Roast potatoes (for dh)
Lobster Mac n cheese (for me and DS)
Sprout slaw
Honeyed baby carrots
roasted balsamic onions
Yorkies

And I can't bloody wait. Beats a dry turkey for 3

We never have a traditional meal. Everyone puts options (e.g. countries) into a bag and dd picks one out - and that's it. Then we look into recipes. This year it's Russia. Means I'm never competing for stuff at the shops. None of us like turkey.

@Acinonyx2 - that's brilliant. Have you picked your country already? What was it? What are you having?
Does everyone just put one option into the bag?

I really think that's my answer here.

Pigs in blanket in the hole sounds delicious too, as does the pecan pie cheesecake.

@helpingyourselftocheese do you home cook the lobster mac m cheese?

We are having fillet of beef with yorkshires and cheesecake.

Yes, it's a recipe from the bbcgoodfood website - I use the whole frozen lobster, they were £5 each in Morrison's last week!

@Acinonyx2 - I apologise - I've just reread and see you've picked Russia.
What's on the menu?

Fillet of beef is lovely, @RosesforMama

£5? That's very good value. Will look up the recipe.

We have a very random hot buffet everyone writes down what they want.

@SilkyMoonfaceandTheSaucepanMan We've done this for a very long time. It started out with a big bag of options and we've tried many variations. More recently, we each put in 3-4 options. This year is Russian food. Not all options were great on the day - but it's always interesting - has to be something new.

We’re doing traditional, but in other years we’ve done a bbq, a seafood platter and a Thai takeaway.

For NYD, we’re thinking of beef Wellington with trimmings. Mezze would be a cracking option too.

Salmon Kulebyaka is the main dish (with caviar - dd wants to try it although I don't fancy it at all!). We make the hot dinner for evening meal - random favourites cold buffet for lunch (and Xmas Eve, and whenever) so we're not cooking in the morning while doing presents.

We've got a gammon this year

I'm doing braised lamb shanks with lots of herbs, roasted cauliflower, and polenta. I'm looking forward to it!

We are having party food

I'm having pizza.

We're doing poussin this year, but if you wanted to avoid the roast, I'd do a ham in the slow cooker the day before, and serve with dauphinois and various hearty salads. Great for leftovers too

We always do traditional Xmas dinner, but if we couldn't, I would do a huge curry banquet.

Salmon would be lovely. We go traditional here but if I wasn't cooking turkey I would cook either salmon or roast duck.