Christmas Dinner disasters anyone?

[itsmeagain76]

Hi all
First year cooking Christmas dinner at home for a number of people, it went well thankfully.
My only 'disaster' as such was the 'get ahead' gravy recipe by Jamie Oliver which was awful. Anyone else use it? There's so much effort (I did it on Christmas Eve), roasting chicken wings and celery, onions, carrots, herbs, etc, then frying off on the hob with flour and water, straining it several times etc. For a start it had absolutely NO colour and looked and smelled like chicken soup. The next day when I got it out of the fridge it had congealed and I had to reheat it, re-sieve it and add more sherry, then it ended up far too thin and watery. To be fair it tasted ok, just looked very unappetising and pale.
On the other hand, Jamie Oliver's roast potato recipe was absolutely fabulous and a resounding success!

Any disasters anyone?
Any tips for better gravy?

I ended up in tears a few years back and I realised that 99%of the time the only person that gives a damm about the food being perfect is myself.
So I always try to make ahead as much as possible (gravy, roasties, dauphinoise potatoes, sauces, pigs in blankets, meat cooked in sous vide, desserts) and chuck things from the freezer to the oven.
My lot are happy with pigs in blankets, gravy and Yorkshire puddings.
Being precious only problem was that I didn't reduced the mushroom duxelle enough and had a bit of soggy pastry in the Wellington. Again I was the only person bothered by it.

The world is divided into those who can make gravy and those who can't - simples! I LOVE the stuff, can't ever get enough, but my gravy making efforts were given up long ago. I can cook anything else you care to ask for but gravy . no. DH is a master gravy maker so I am saved. I don't even want to learn how he does it ( I do know that it does not include any pre-prepared stuff, but does include giblets, bones, root veg.spices, wine etc,) )t is an art in itself! He often starts the day before and by the time his masterpiece is ready I could have cooked for the 5000 - but it is worth every spoonful!

Xmas day disaster - well not exactly, but a departure from planned procedure! I over-defrosted the vegan Richmond sausages (i.e. nearly cooked them through), and realised I had nowhere near enough space to finish them in the oven and also do vegan Yorkshire puds. So I combined them and made vegan toad in the hole instead. It was lush!

Bisto onion gravy is our favourite

Power outage halfway through cooking the roast dinner.
It lasted 4 hrs. We had dinner at 9:30pm!

My gravy was gorgeous I just used the tescos red wine jelly cube 2 oxos. Gravy was cooked in the pot with beef red onion, onion and garlic just add corn flour mixed with some water to thicken it up. I dont ever have chicken gravy.

@inappropriateraspberry fair enough. :)

I've never fucked about making proper gravy. I do vegetarian onion gravy the day before which is a piece of piss, and tastes much better the day after.

My Christmas disaster was overcatering on a lavish scale for ExP's family the first time it was my time to host. I cooked myself to the bone in an absolute panic, served up every single bastard thing they would consider to make it a 'real' Christmas dinner... and then realised that the table was so fecking overloaded with food that we couldn't actually sit down at it, so ended up with plates on our laps in the living room. I don't think they ever forgave me for such a terrible lapse. It was only DS who had a proper chair. Because he was 11 months old and the highchair was draggable

I usually make own gravy but Turkey - can't be doing with the giblets etc so Marks & Spencer in a tub and personalise. Xmas dinner was great. Only disaster was today when my home made sourdough required a further 8 mins just to finish browning - left adult son with Alexa time - of course he turned the timer off and 2 hrs later husband found the rather dark loaf in the oven!.