To ask if there are other WOMEN who can't produce a Xmas dinner

[JudyShakes]

Every year on MN there are threads started by women saying that are fed up of doing Christmas dinner, or they don't feel well enough this year etc. And posters will pipe up "get DH/DP to do it!"

DH does the Christmas and most other cooking here. Am I the only FEMALE who would really struggle to produce a Xmas meal that was special enough to deserve the name?

I can do it. I haven’t done that many but I can. I don’t love doing it though - roasts are always a bit of a fiddle with all the timings.

I think any man or woman (SEN or physical disabilities aside) can do it. There are some who don’t want to. That’s fine but those people shouldn’t demand that another family member does it, they should come to an arrangement that suits everyone (going out to dinner, m and s, a different special meal) and that doesn’t mean children lose out on the specialness of Xmas dinner.

I’d struggle a bit to do it on my own - or at least it would take much longer because I’m really awkward/cackhanded so struggle to eg peel the spuds. DH is my sous chef! But I think he’d struggle more on his own because he doesn’t know what to do, when, if you see what I mean.

The other day he said, “We should write down all the steps and timings for the Christmas lunch so we can make sure everything is ready at the right time.” So I told him to go ahead, but it turns out he mean I should write down all the steps and timings - hopefully he’s not planning to get rid of me! He’s shit out of luck there because I’m not going to spend my time writing down what’s right there in my head.

I wish I had a husband who could cook I do all of the cooking in our house, and I make a great Xmas dinner.

@DrizzleandDamp

Meat needs less cooking than you think, modern ovens cook quicker basically if you have a fan especially, so for a roast you need to knock 10% off the cook time approx and the trick is to remove it, wrap in foil, cover with a tea towel and leave to rest, the bigger the joint the longer you leave it eg a medium turkey around 30-40 mins. Also buy fattier cuts for more forgiving roasts eg pork shoulder and lamb shoulder are great, very hard to dry out. Beef is tricky as it has a very small margin between too rare for anyone but me (who would happily eat it raw) and dry. Chicken - just cheat and buy the roast in bag ones!

Just to correct my earlier post, we will be have Raclette cheese fondu not racketeering cheese fondu this Xmas.

Also, can I just suggest that Xmas food should be in the spirit of the festivity and bring joy to all. If that's MacDonalds, egg and chips or the most perfectly cooked turkey then just do it to please yourself and those you love.

@LeaveMyDamnJam

I can do a Christmas dinner. It’s easy cooking just requires organisation.

That said DH cooks it as he enjoys it. I cook most of the rest of the time because he works crazy hours. I like cooking complex dishes and Christmas food isn’t very interesting for me.

I don't agree it is easy cooking if you don't have natural organisational skills. Roast dinners with lots of trimmings ( mashed potato and roast and bread pudding and carrots and parsnips and stuffing and pigs in blankets and cauliflower cheese and braised cabbage and gravy etc) require precision timings and juggling things in the oven for different lengths of time with things on the hob. Getting it all ready at he same time so bits dont go cold is a chalenge for me anyway . I have to plan it all out in advance setting multiple different timers at different times and I find it stressful .

I can do it and can produce a very nice meal but it is not fun for me.

I so prefer cooking where timing is more of a guide and where there are not multiple separate meal elements to get ready at the same time . However I love a good roast and while DH finds it all less stressful and can make a perfectly adequate roast dinner, mine is much better so I do Christmas dinner.

I’ve never made Christmas dinner. My husband is a chef and always cooks it.

I do almost everything in advance, including par boiling the potatoes and freezing them. Then cook the roasties straight from frozen. They're crisper that way too as you open freeze them so they dry out a bit. Bread sauce, cheese sauce for cauliflower, stuffing etc will all be in the freezer ready. I hate the faff of doing much on the day.

@DrizzleandDamp

Me. My cooking is shit, and everyone says you just need to learn, but I’m over 40 now and been single so responsible for the cooking for years and it’s still shit. Kids get excited when something isn’t burnt.

I’m very worried about Christmas as my family always does it...

Marks and Spencer darling

@longwigglylines

I would find it really hard. I find cooking lots of things at once really stressful. It's always a mad rush at the end.

Luckily DP loves cooking, otherwise we'd be in a pickle!

I recently was diagnosed with ADHD and being bad at the organisational skills and juggling loads of things at once is part of ADHD, I now realised.

Those of you who find cooking stressful and are generally a bit "scatty" / disorganised / always running late / easily distracted from what you're meant to be doing, might want to do some research into ADHD in adults . It's been a revelation! (I'm not hyperactive, you don't need to be, it's a badly named condition!).

I think there's two types ADHD (with the hyperactive element) and ADD (inattentive type).

I definitely have traits of the second, my brain jumps around a lot. But rather than being late, I'm the opposite, I'm super conscious of time. Never late and without a watch I can close my eyes and correctly guess the time.

But cooking, I just can't, I feel like I'm trapped, I throw it all on and abandon it, tell my husband to set the stop watch on his phone and I'll come back and plate it up. I just don't have the attention span for it.

Whenever I read these threads I think I must be doing something wrong. Christmas dinner in our house is just a, roast plus pigs in blankets.
Since I do a roast every Sunday it's no different but maybe I should be doing something a bit more special.

If you practice cooking Sunday roasts then Christmas dinner shouldn't be too much harder. Like PP's have said, it's mostly about getting the timing right and doing lots of prep.

DH cooks most of our Sunday roasts so I'm a bit out of practice but if I were to offer to cook Christmas dinner, I'd make sure I was back in the loop.

Then again, I suppose it depends on expectations because when you look at the "What are you having for Christmas dinner?" threads, they vary massively from a fairly simple turkey roast to 97 different types of veg and enough meat to sink Noah's Ark.

I've never cooked a roast dinner of any kind from scratch. I dare say I could cobble something together if I had too but I doubt it would be great.

I'd rather stick to stuff you get frozen to bung in the oven. A tray of pre-stuffed pork, pre-cut roasties, frozen parsnips, etc.

I married a chef. Much easier.

I am Dyspraxic with a, side order of ADHD.

I can put together a Christmas Dinner but it's chaotic and I get easily overwhelmed.

So I do as much prep as possible before the day. I premake my own stuffing and freeze it at the beginning of December. I buy ready made finest Yorkshire puddings. Prepacked pigs in blankets and M&S Xmas cauliflower cheese and Red Cabbage etc. I love buying the bits and it makes the day much easier.

I can do it , but my husband is better at the roast potatoes and veg the kids lay the table and help dish up. It is a lot of work for a posh roast though and only four of us to cook for.
I would rather a nice m and s ready meal myself but the Turkey does do for Boxing Day. Best bit is when it is cleared away around 3pm and I don't have to think about it for another year.

@Rosebel

Whenever I read these threads I think I must be doing something wrong. Christmas dinner in our house is just a, roast plus pigs in blankets. Since I do a roast every Sunday it's no different but maybe I should be doing something a bit more special.

A ‘normal’ roast in our house would be something like roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potato, broccoli and carrots for example. We don’t bother with roasts much though, maybe once every 2 months. Christmas dinner would maybe venison Wellington, roast potatoes, braised red cabbage, cauliflower cheese, broccoli, carrots, leeks, Brussel sprouts sautéed in butter with bacon, pigs in blankets... I think some people have more exciting ‘standard’ roasts than ours!

@DrizzleandDamp if it makes you feel better when my eldest son had his first invite to a friend's house for dinner he came home and was very excited to inform me that "some mummies do cook!".

I only cook one pot stuff now because it is much easier for me. I am dyslexic and clumsy and cannot do chronological order to save my life. I cook stuff that all goes in together then put a timer on and go do something less boring instead.

My children are an appreciative audience - when they leave home I will probably revert back to noodles and the occasional meal dh makes.

I don't bother. I don't like Christmas Dinner and CBA to cook it. We graze on shitty Buffett foods all day instead!

My mum hasn't ever cooked a roast dinner I don't think. My dad does all the cooking and everything else

I can cook to a decent level and that includes a Christmas dinner. However I don't like cooking at all and I have said that I am not cooking Christmas Dinner this year and someone else will need to. If it comes down to me it will just be a dinner that we would usually have.

I don't think my mum can. I can't remember a time when she ever cooked Christmas dinner when I was a child. We only ever went to my grandparents. Then when grandparents both died, we'd go out for Chinese on Christmas instead, which was actually pretty great at the time. It was just the 2 of us and I think she must have assumed that since she wasn't good at cooking, might as well make something fun of it and save the hassle and expense. I am sure she must cook something now (just her and stepdad), but I'm NC with them now, so I have no idea. It's definitely more along the lines of a roast chicken with some pre-mixed stuffing balls though, not like an actual Christmas dinner.

We have tried all kinds of combinations of veggies but top for us is the roast pots and peas and carrots and maybe a ready made cauliflower cheese.

Me. I'm almost 40 & never cooked a roast dinner let alone a Xmas dinner. Hate cooking

Bung Turkey in a roasting bag and cook, make roasties, make roast veg, throw sprouts in the bin where they belong, add gravy...done! I write down the timings though and have 2 ovens.