Show me your Christmas dinners!

[fuckmemytoehurts]

I'll start. Sorry for sticking it here, posting for traffic.

Didn't fancy turkey this year so did a beef wellington, with mushroom duxelle & Parma ham inside.
Goose fat roasties with garlic salt and rosemary.
Cinnamon red cabbage
Pan fried sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta
Normal carrots as my 4 year old won't eat them any other way
Pigs in blankets
Homemade yorkies
Waitrose bought stuffing as I don't really like it that much.

Topped with an orange gravy with a red wine stock pot shoved in.

It was delish. Ate early-ish as I have to eat with medication. Thought I'd get in early and ask you all to share your lovely Christmas lunches!

Also highly recommend the meat from Waitrose butcher counter. It's lovely.

Duck
mashed and roast potatoes
pigs in blankets and stuffing balls
carrots, parsnips and Brussels sprouts

All cooked by 15 year old DS, for the third year in a row. It’s not even a stealth boast, it’s just a boast, he does all our cooking and it’s amazing!

I had lasagne (only half ot it). Here's a before and after cooking.

Shame you cannot giveis his neme so we recognise him when he becomes a celebrity chef or he gets a michellin star!
He has future in this.

Give us his name!
(Sorry, I should give up writing on a phone...)

😋😋

Turkey as usual here

@OnceUponAThread aw thanks that's put a smile on my face!😂

We’re very lucky! He’s determined to become a fighter pilot but his absolute passion is cooking. He actually looks forward to it, which baffles me 😂.

These are the only pics I have, before and after deboning

A question about leftovers that applies to normal meals and Christmas dinner... I see a lot of people on here saying things like, "Leftovers for tomorrow/three days" etc. Do you cook too much deliberately to have leftovers or is it the food left on people's plates being saved for another meal? We are a family of 3 and we never have leftovers. I have a smaller appetite than ds and dd but I know what each of our appetites are and only cook how much I know we will likely eat. Any leftovers on people's plates are just put in the waste.

We didn't have peas, we had sprouts, carrots, parsnips, mashed swede and carrot and broccoli and potatoes.

Do I win? 😉 People can eat what they want on Xmas day FFS!

Only leftovers now but had this

I'm in a hot country, so everything was served cold, but we had:

Turkey
Ham
Potato salad
Green salad
Coleslaw
Prawns
Garlic bread and a variety of buttered buns
Christmas cake
Pavlova w/fruit

I hosted 20 this year, and I have so much leftovers!

I had that as leftovers this evening with roast spuds, roast parsnips and roast sweet potatoes.

Glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Divine!

Congrats - on the dinner and your baby!

That is a fine dinner - you must be counting your blessings he’s such a good cook

I always cook so there's lots leftover at Christmas, so I don't have to cook for the next few days at least, if not longer. Everyone just helps themselves (once big enough, me or OH do a plate for the youngest) to leftovers whenever they're hungry and there's no proper meals at all in the post-Christmas days.
Though actually we've run out of swede casserole already so I might buy one from the shop today on our way home from 3rd Christmas because there's still so much ham but needs something to go with it and the potato casserole.

Veggie Christmas dinner. Gravy was added after I took the photo.

Most years we have a homemade dessert, but I couldn't be bothered this year, so DH had Christmas pudding from M&S, and I had another classic: Viennetta.

I cook too much but it’s partly experience that people’s appetites vary – I wouldn’t count out three roast potatoes per person, say, as some days DS might eat one and another four. I wouldn’t save scraps from people’s plates

And some recipes don’t scale down easily, especially Christmas ones – one red cabbage always creates a food mountain; my mum’s stuffing calls for one onion and OK, could use half or a quarter so there’s no leftovers but then I’ve got half an onion knocking around the fridge for no reason. And the leftovers are wonderful: had a piece last night with the traditional cheese, crackers, cold meat and pickles meal; it goes well in sandwiches; with everything! And a chicken, even if not the proverbial Mumsnet chicken, always has leftovers. I don’t see how you DON’T have leftovers!

There’s no cooking on the agenda for the next few days except a bread and butter pudding from all the bits leftover from making stuffing and bread sauce: today we’re having leftovers like potatoes and other roast vegetables made into a spicy hash for our main meal, topped with eggs and salsa; tomorrow we’ll have the stuffing, red cabbage and cold meats (chicken, chipolatas, bacon) with salads, pickles and baked potatoes for our main meal. We’ll make stuffing and chicken sandwiches the day after for a Big Walk.

If you cook a turkey that has enough meat for 8 hungry people or enough chilli for 6 then the leftovers are the bit that doesn't get served.

Taking the food back off people's plates, unless they're just setting it aside for themselves, is revolting.

Eh?

Forgot the cauliflower cheese I was keeping warm in the grill 😩

PLEASE give me your Yorkshire pudding recipe! Mine always come out flat as a pancake 😂

From a very impressed fellow vegan

@HereForTheAnimals Yes! recipe please from a fellow Vegan 😊

As a PP said, the leftovers are what doesn't get served.

I made duck this year (and every year at Christmas, though now I've seen goose in shops I may try my hands at that). We're 3 people, including one still relatively small child. The duck feeds 5 grown adults (1 leg each, 2 wings, 1 breast each) and even then there's meat on the carcass. So I served the legs and wings yesterday.

The roast duck breasts and other bits of meat are chopped into pieces today and made into a sweet and sour, together with the few chestnuts I didn't use for the stuffing, and some other veg. The carcass is then boiled for stock for yet another meal. I also didn't use all the bacon for the sprouts, so it's in the freezer now, waiting to be cooked with cauliflower at some point to make another meal.

The leftover Christmas veg and sausages go into sandwiches (or tortilla boats seeing as I'm out of bread).

What do you do with bits of food you don't use? Surely there must be some?