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?

Aunt Bessie and a frozen Iceland turkey breast is your friend!

If you can do a roast dinner then you can do a christmas dinner

I don’t understand the difference between a roast and a Christmas roast apart from maybe extra veg and pigs in blankets which pretty much look after themselves.
I cooked roast lamb yesterday with roast potatoes , mashed swede and mashed carrots , Yorkshire pudding and gravy
The only difference between that and a Christmas dinner is pigs and blankets which if shop bought requires shoving in the oven for 20 minutes in the foil tray provided
It’s a faff if you make your own gravy , make your own horseradish ( who does that nowadays ) and make your own stuffing from chestnuts , ( again why would anyone do that )
I do make my own gravy from chicken carcass but that can be done weeeeeeeeeks in advance and frozen then shove it in a saucepan for 10 minutes

DH and I can both do a great roast dinner or Christmas dinner. We absolutely hate cooking together though so we do roasts on our own but as Christmas dinner is a bit more faff, we do tend to do it as more of a joint effort.

Christmas dinner isn't difficult in terms of technical cooking skills, but there is an art to getting the timing right. If this is something you struggle with, write a timetable of when things need to be started and when they've finished.

With our Christmas dinner, I tend to prepare and cook or semi-cook the stuff that can be done in advance, so that a) it's less preparation on the day and b) it frees us space in the oven/on the hob. Things I'll make in advance are:

braised red cabbage - my method takes a good couple of hours so I'll do this a week in advance and then freeze it
stuffing - nothing fancy, just a packet of Paxo with a packet of sausage meat and some extra fried onions added. I prep this a day or so in advance, cover with foil and put it in the fridge so that it just needs shoving in the oven to cook whilst the turkey is resting (I don't like stuffing cooked inside the turkey)
carrots and swede - same as the red cabbage, I'll cook and mash the week before and freeze
other veg - this will be prepped the day before

Roast potatoes do take some practice to get right but if that's not your forte then Aunt Bessie does some cracking roasties!

A good timetable really does make all the difference with Christmas dinner, or indeed any roast dinner! Preparation in advance also makes it much less overwhelming.

It’s a glorified Sunday roast. I didn’t really know how anyone couldn’t do it tbh. If you do it properly, not, it isn't a glorified Sunday roast. You're producing in larger quantity, so unless you have a passion for dinner parties and have a kitchen to match, you find you're juggling things because you can't get everything you want in the oven at the same time. Instead of just doing gravy at the last minute to be piping hot with the rest of the meal, you're doing both gravy and bread sauce. And do you make the custard (for those who don't like brandy butter) while you're juggling with gravy and bread sauce, or do you it between courses? So while each element may be something you do with a Sunday roast (and not all of us do a roast every Sunday), the fact you're doing so many at once and in such quantity means that it isn"t as easy as doing a Sunday roast.

Just google for online calculators OP. Type in what time you want to eat, type or meat and weight and hey presto it gives you an entire run down of when to put what in.

I was vegetarian for many years and am still not great at cooking meat. Dh does the turkey. DC and I make the pudding (not traditional Christmas pudding but a whipped cream and meringue version) in advance. I do most of the veg.

Works for us. (But it's definitely times like this I wish I had an Aga ...)

*It's just a roast!"

Is it really @movingonup20? If that's all it is, I wonder why 237 posters haven't already said so.

Oh wait ...

@MereDintofPandiculation

It’s a glorified Sunday roast. I didn’t really know how anyone couldn’t do it tbh. If you do it properly, not, it isn't a glorified Sunday roast. You're producing in larger quantity, so unless you have a passion for dinner parties and have a kitchen to match, you find you're juggling things because you can't get everything you want in the oven at the same time. Instead of just doing gravy at the last minute to be piping hot with the rest of the meal, you're doing both gravy and bread sauce. And do you make the custard (for those who don't like brandy butter) while you're juggling with gravy and bread sauce, or do you it between courses? So while each element may be something you do with a Sunday roast (and not all of us do a roast every Sunday), the fact you're doing so many at once and in such quantity means that it isn"t as easy as doing a Sunday roast.

But your idea of 'properly' will be different to someone else's.

For a start, none of us like bread sauce or brandy butter and 12 people is the maximum we'll have over for dinner. Mainly due to the fact we have a tiny little kitchen.

We've only ever hosted Christmas dinner once and dh cooked. I'm a really pretty decent cook, but I get quite stressed and flappy cooking for guests if it's something that requires lots of things being ready at once. Dh loves cooking and is a very good and chilled-out cook! So... I could do it, but I'd rather not!

I make a reasonable roast. That’s all I do on Christmas Day.

On my own with 2DC and although I used to fantasise about a perfect Christmas dinner, the reality is that I would rather spend more time with them than stressing out in the kitchen. M&S have helped me considerably over the years. I am not a confident cook.

This year however, I am breaking tradition and have ordered everything right down to the spuds from my local butcher. I’ll do as much as I can in advance and not deviate from my timings. Nothing fancy or onerous. They’d better bloody appreciate it (if not then at least the leftovers will see us through until New Year!)

I'm sure I could but as DH has always made Christmas dinner, it remains a complete hypothetical.

I could cook it but couldn't serve it. I freak about serving dinner so dh does it. I can manage if there is only 2-3pots but once you throw in the 4th thats it. I'm out.

We are an excellent tag team Xmas eve and morning (probably due to the baileys!). Everything peeled and in the pan filled with water night before then turkey in in the morning. Tray ready with stuffing/ pigs in blankets, tray of parboiled potato’s and duck fat, tray of carrots and parsnips with oil and honey, tray of Yorkshire’s. Pan of Mashable spuds and another with Brussels, frying pan of bacon for frying the Brussels towards the end.
Alexa set with a timer when to put each thing in and when to take it out, another every half hour for basting the turkey.
It’s all about prep and timing. Piece of cake when there’s 2 of you!

You aren't alone!

I can but I choose not too. A Sunday dinner isn't top of my list for a favourite meal.

Good shout Madame M&S it is!

I’ve worked with home economists and chefs for years in my career, there should be no reason I can’t turn out decent food. Yet I have been banned from helping, I have an aura that can fuck up food from a 1000 paces. It’s actually quite magical.

It's the planning and prep of Christmas dinner that's hard work. Deciding what you're having and how it will be cooked, shopping for everything at the right time (late enough that fresh stuff is still good, early enough that it won't have sold out) then you have to figure out the timings of everything, then there's the inevitable oven space issues which usually mean you can't cook more than 2 or 3 things in there at any one time.

I used to go all out but now I do what others have said here and just do a nice roast dinner with a few extra bits. Makes the whole thing much less stressful.

For many it is just a more glorified roast though.

I think some people put far too much pressure on themselves wanting everything on one plate and 2 or 3 different courses.

The only difference here between Xmas dinner and a normal roast will be two meats instead of one, pigs in blankets and different veg. The dessert gets made the day before, so even that's not a problem.

Others will want a choice of 2 or 3 different starters, a choice of 2 or 3 different desserts, a cheese board etc and the main course itself for some people it will involve mash as well as roast potatoes, bread sauce, cauliflower cheese and lots of other stuff 'just because it's Christmas'.

Those ^^ tend to be the martyrs posting on Boxing Day that they never got to see their kids opening their presents.

I can’t and for those saying it’s only a Sunday roast, well... I can’t make one of those either. I hate cooking and find it boring, I would never willingly make anything if I didn’t have to. Husband is primary chef here.

I’ve always gone to parents or in laws at Christmas so this will be the first year I’ve have to produce anything (husband is on nights Christmas Eve so will be too tired to cook/in bed until midday most likely). I’ve ordered everything pre prepped from Booths and will just set timers for everything and throw it in/take it out when they tell me to. This is the absolute limit of my cooking ability or interest.

I suspect a lot of people saying it’s easy don’t actually hate cooking.. it might be simple but I still don’t want to do it!

I don't really like Christmas dinner. I think it's bloody stupid. It's just an extra faffy roast, a fucking faffy never worth the effort dinner in the first place. With extra faff thrown in. If it was up to me, I'd make a simple dinner of a favourite comfort food like a big pasta bake or fajitas and salad. Something delicious which takes about 20 minutes of cooking and is simple to clean up after.

The big stupid roast just absolutely ruins Christmas day. It's not the past any more, it's not an amazing special feast of foods that we could never normally eat. Hours spent making the same food we could all eat every day of the week on a day that should just be spent happily soaking up our children's joy. I spend Christmas day at my parent's house and my mum is always there stressing herself out to make a big stupid dinner and I end up feeling compelled to help out even though I just want to chill with DS and it's my dad and brothers who care about the ridiculous dinner. Then I end up having to eat loads of food that I genuinely don't want to eat. If I'm going to stuff myself into an uncomfortable level of food, it better be absolutely delicious, not a boring, overly complicated roast. So many years of me going, no, I don't want turkey and ham, I don't really like turkey on a roast dinner, I'll just have ham. And then feeling like I'm being a spoilsport for not eating the damn turkey.

I do it every year and I'm so shit at it.

@MaskingForIt

I can make a roast dinner if I have to, but I don’t particularly enjoy it.

How does that differ to a Christmas dinner?

It's no different, people just choose to martyr themselves trying to match the celeb cooks on the social media to which they seem to be addicted. In reality it's one of the easiest meals to produce, timing isn't as vital as for other meals. Relax is the best advice.

I am "producing" Christmas dinner this year - with the help of M&S Christmas dinner, all prepped just shove in oven after we collect it on Christmas Eve.

I mean, I probably could do it without m&s's help but I don't want to spend hours prepping a lovely Christmas dinner, which invariably the children will turn there noses up at most of, plus DH is veggie.

We normally go out on Christmas Day, but didn't want to risk it this year (in case pubs are shut, rather than specifically worrying about catching covid).