To Ask For Your Christmas Dinner Shortcuts?

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I'm cooking this year, for 6 people (all adults, no children). I've never cooked Christmas lunch before, and I know it's basically a fancy Sunday lunch, but I've not cooked one of those for donkeys years either .

Please share your Christmas dinner shortcuts! Thank you!

Things you can do the day before:
Peel & chop your potatoes and leave them in unsalted cold water. (Salt will turn them black!)
Ditto for carrots and parsnips (I never remove the core from parsnips,)
Peel sprouts the night before and leave them in the fridge
Make stuffing balls and pigs in blankets (can also buy ready made; don't actually stuff the turkey because of added cooking time)
If you are making giblet gravy, make the giblet stock in the slow cooker overnight (if you have one)
Make brandy butter
Make bread sauce

On the day (to make life easy and free up oven space):
If you are doing bacon/sausage sandwiches, cook the bacon on a tray in the oven rather than faffing about with pans
Make your gravy early and keep in warm in a slow cooker or a thermos
Your turkey (or whatever meat) needs to come out to rest for 30 mins so you can get loads in the oven at this point! (pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, carrots and parsnips)
Steam your pudding in an electric steamer, rice cooker or slow cooker
If you are doing a ham it can be boiled on the hob and finished off in the oven for 20-30 mins to free up oven space
If you have a hot air fryer or deep fat fryer it can do carrots/parsnips or even potatoes!

But most of all, make a list and include times, for turkey (or other main meat) especially.

Roast dinner, Christmas or otherwise is all about timing.

Cook the turkey early, wrap in foil and cover with tea towels, it'll sit and rest happily for hours. Then you have have oven space for spuds, veg and extras.

I've got a breast joint this year so making Jamie Oliver's get ahead gravy in advance as it doesn't give enough meat juices.

You can parboil the potatoes the night before if you want to, coat in flour / semolina and they're ready to go.

I've done many christmases now, including one with 4 month old twins. The worst thing is getting stressed about it. If you say lunch at 3 and eat at 5 it's nit the end of the world!

If you're really not confident but everything ready prepped from m and s and chuck in the oven!

I prep all veg in advance and keep in pans in water .
Cook turkey early then cover with foil and a tea towel and it’ll stay a decent temp .
I also use disposable foil trays for cooking as that saves time on washing up and space in the dishwasher

Agree with a four bird roast mentioned earlier.
Have bought in pigs in blankets and will prep the veg on Xmas eve. We do spuds, sprouts and roasted parsnips and carrots. I find adding some herbs to the veg makes the sides special eg garlic cloves and rosemary to the parsnips/carrots.
Have also bought in some naice individual deserts from Booths this year. A cheese plate is easy to do too.

Stagger your eating times. This also helps with washing up and clearing away etc.

We eat the starter at 12. Then play games and wait for the roast to cook and eat that about 2.30.

We have puddings around 4-5pm or when people are hungry.

Delegate jobs. Use pre prepared where you can. Don't make things more difficult for yourself.

Love this thread

Cook your turkey upside down. Means all the juices run into the top bit (ie the bit you actually eat) so you don’t have to baste it. Just turn it the right way up for the last 20 mins or so if you like a crispy skin

This is my all-time best Christmas dinner trick:
To have warm dinner plates and serving dishes, run them through ypur dishwasher on a short cycle and keep the door closed.
Hot plates, no hassle.

Yep, my sausages are wrapped in bacon and in the freezer in the tins they'll be cooked in.

Agree with peeling and slicing vegetables the night before.

We actually put the turkey in the oven the night before we go to bed, then the oven is set to come on early in the morning without anyone having to actually turn it on. We do have an enormous turkey though!

I’ve never done any preparation in advance 😱 but I, or rather DH these days, do write a comprehensive timetable so we can juggle the oven/job/microwave space. Work out what serving dishes we’re using and warming them.
I tend to lay the table whilst DH is doing the vegetables.

get everything from M&S and Cook and book a pub for diner as you haven't got young kids (otherwise it's buffet kind of diner.)

Life is too short to spend Christmas Day in the kitchen!

Bouledeneige 3 ovens??? How big is your kitchen?

Buy as much as you can ready done, roasties, veg, sauces, then you can concentrate on the turkey or whatever you are cooking, posh up some packet stuffing with added lemon or chestnuts, ready done pigs in blankets, make your gravy a week before & freeze, have bacon to put on top of the turkey, put butter on all the veggies when they are cooked, dump them in your own dishes & dump all the packets in someone else's bin. Nobody need ever know you haven't cooked it all from scratch. An easy starter like pate with toast or prawn cocktail. Christmas pudding done in microwave, wash up as you go along or better still get someone else to do it, keep shuffling saucepans around even if you don't use them, they think you are a culinary genius, you keep your sanity, everyone is happy.

Order a takeaway

Make a list of timings working backwards from serving up.

Make mashed potatoes on Christmas Eve, keep covered in fridge over night and then heat up in microwave. This frees up some pan space, I find this the most challenging thing as I host for 12.

Aunt bessies frozen carrot and swede mash. Heats through quickly, again saving on pan space, time and prep!

Have more than 1 gravy boat and boil the kettle just before you sit down. That way if you run out of gravy you’ll have hot water ready to make some instant bisto up.

Prepare veg Xmas eve
put on trays in fridge meat etc
set table if not needed xmas eve
working backwards from time u want to eat write down timings
use timer on oven or phone to remind u when things need doing
wash as go as much as u can (or delegate it)
make sure u have a drink to hand at all times

I agree with @MrsWhites, make sure you write yourself a timings list working backwards from when you want to serve. It's a bit faffy doing this beforehand but it's an absolute saviour when you are actually cooking. Timings are the hardest part of a roast or Christmas dinner.

Book at a restaurant

Set the table on Christmas Eve if you can. If not, after breakfast.
Par boil potatoes on Christmas Eve, rough them up, then leave in the fridge ready to roast on Christmas Day.
Peel and blanch parsnips and veg so they're ready to roast.
Plan what is going on what trays in advance.
Do a timeline - start from when you want to eat and work backwards.
Take turkey out when you want to put potatoes in to give it some resting/carving time.
Have a very easy starter if you're having one. Or have it a couple of hours before the main. Plan time for serving and eating the starter.

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams I may do this as ours is huge this year ,,feeds up to 18 people

Fizzy DF used to work for a company where you could be given a catering-sized turkey as your Christmas present (rather than wine or a hamper) which worked well for our family. One was so big I remember my DPs in the kitchen on Christmas Eve cutting off the legs and the parson's nose so the oven door would close!

So maybe check that you can fit yours in in advance!

Ready prepared sprouts from Marks.
I remember one Christmas Eve faffing with sprouts, washing them, peeling them, putting crosses on them. I swore never again. I hate the things- they're one vegetable you gave to add something to to make them palatable.
You can eat carrots on their own. Or peas. Or cabbage. But blo*dy sprouts need chestnuts or sausage meat or something with them 🙄

Sprouts are the spawn of the devil. They need so much doing to them to make them at all palatable that they have been off the menu here for years. And as for the windy farts after..... NO they are totally banned!

Anyway, simple enough here, the meat, stuffing, roast parnsips, glazed carrots and LOTS of roast spuds.

I get everything ready prepared apart from the meat. Couldn't be arsed with all that faff. No one will ever know and if they made a comment they would out on their ear for next time. LOL.

Bisto Best chicken gravy with a smidgeon of onion powder and a drop or two of Worcestershire sauce will cover every misdemeanour.

If you're doing a starter, make a cold one and keep it in the fridge ahead on Christmas Eve.

Cook ham on Christmas Eve, make bread sauce and red cabbage on Christmas Eve. Peel all other veg and put in water the night before; get plates and glassware out ready to lay table - enlist lots of help!

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams I looked at the turkey , then the oven, then the turkey again and then the very scientific way of measuring by trying to keep your hands the same width and walking to the oven .. still none the wiser
Will definitely measure it properly tomorrow !