One (average sized) tray of roast potatoes for eight people

[Rach247]

…including four large and permanently-hungry men. Just seen it being prepared at my in-laws. No other potatoes, boiled carrots and broccoli are the only other sides.

AIBU to be disappointed (and preemptively hungry)?

@MySilentLions is McDonald’s even open on Christmas day? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, they don’t do chicken nugget salads do they? I know Slim Chicken do a good salad. I do love a big salad. Perhaps people should include a big winter salad with their Christmas dinner and they’d not need so many deep fried carbs? 🤣🤣🤣

YANBU. That sounds terrible.

We also had a roast potato disaster. I was going to do the Christmas shop.last weekend, but my mum was rushed into hospital, so I was there and DH did the Christmas shop..I reminded him about getting roast potatoes. I am a terrible cook, but I can "make" nice roast potatoes. I usually buy the ready prepperd ones on a foil tray, but then roast in extra goose fat - and for my son and I, who aren't big roast (or turkey) fans, the roasties are our favourite part of.lunch. DH said he said he had bought roast potatoes so I didn't give it a second thought.

On Christmas morning, I opened the fridge to look for the roasties and no sign whatsoever. DH said "Oh, they are in the freezer'...! I opened the freezer to find a tiny bag of McCain roasties. I could have cried... this was for 5 adults!!!! I did my best to recreate my nice "crispy' roasties, but they were awful. We only had a few small potatoes each, and it was so disappointing. With my mum still in hospital, it seemed trivial in comparison, and I know DH didn't do it on purpose, but it was really rubbish. I just about held it together... until he then said we didn't need to decant the cranberry sauce into my lovely little Le Creuset bowl I had put out and xould just have the jar on the table. THEN I really lost it - ha ha!!

I did 5kg potatoes for 11, with 9 parsnips roasted across 2 trays. I have 2 ovens so after the meats are out of each oven I have one hot oven for roasting potatoes. The lower shelf doesn’t brown as nicely so the top shelf roasties are served first and then the second lot comes out after another 10 mins. The first tray is enough for the first round of serving.

We had turkey, beef and pork, roasties, parsnips, cauliflower cheese (2.5 cauliflower), broccoli (2.5), 2kg carrots, 1kg peas, 1kg roasted sprouts, 24 pigs in blankets, 12 stuffing balls, mushroom wellington for the vegetarian, 18 yorkshires, & 5 pints of gravy.

There’s about a quarter of the food left which will make a reasonable sized cold meat and bubble and squeak meal later for 9 of us. Coupled with the Xmas pud which we can never eat on Xmas day, and cheese.

There's just no excuse for this. A 2.5kg bag of potatoes was 5p in many supermarkets on the lead up to Christmas. Potatoes are one thing that you really can't overdo; a firm favourite for many, cheap and loads of leftovers options.

I would if I'd been the host (although I would have done enough).
The host was oblivious to it. DH and I were the last two and were too British and polite to mention it 😂. To be clear the people who were served first were definitely holding back and only got two tiny pieces of potato when they could easily have eaten much more.

We always aim for 5/6 per person I’d rather have left overs than not enough. We also do a mash and dauphine potatoes, as well as all the normal veg, two meats, enough stuffing for a horse, pigs in blankets and yorkies.

Yeah... Christmas Dinner was like this for us yesterday. Three small roasties each, one small pig in blanket, one yorkshire pudding. No wonder DH keeps saying he'd rather do the roast himself than let my parents do it.

I am very grateful to them cooking btw, and I did help (wish I'd helped with ordering the food!), and DH and my BIL did the washing up. We did take plenty of buffet stuff round too. I know they are getting older. But their portion sizes are mean, and it's sad.

1 roast potato each? No? Surely not? 2-3 roast potatoes each surely?

I'd leave very hungry as I can't eat cauli cheese, red cabbage, mussels, bread, pavlova, black Forrest or custard (or Xmas pud/cake)!

This is one of the MASSIVE drawbacks to not hosting your own Christmas OP. Someone else decides the portions and what you get!

When our DC were born, we stopped going to the stingy inlaws (MIL didn't 'do' pigs in blankets, I mean WTF?! 😱) and have never gone hungry again!

I think if you have dietary requirements that mean you can’t or don’t eat many of the common elements of a meal then you either cater or take contributions. My children have dietary restrictions and I always make sure I take contributions that they can have.

next week I’m catering for New Year’s Eve, I always, always ask for dietary requirements and also make it very clear that people can bring bits for themselves or to share that please them.

Might it be one biggish potato made into two to four roast potatoes? Our Maris Pipers were very large!

I did wonder that, I could get 3 roasties out of each potato here because they were enormous.

We counted out 6 roast potatoes per person. When we cooked them of course, not when we served them.

I did a big tray of roasties plus 21 duchess potatoes for 4 adults and 1 small. Other child had pasta.

i am married to an Irishman, spuds are of great importance to him 😂
plus I have 3 sons, I would cater 4 potatoes per adult, despite feeling like it is a ridiculous amount as I peel them
i make homemade, got to be soft inside (parboiled first) and super crispy outer
im not a huge potato fan, bread is my carb of choice, but I accept the love of roasties and the huge appetites of all men in my life

I'd just like to offer another view here.

I would have thought that one tray of roast potatoes was plenty for eight normal people as part of a well-balanced Christmas Dinn....

...no, sorry. Even as a joke, I can't do it.

That's appalling, OP. It's a crime. It's inhuman. God, poor you....

1 biggish potato cut into 2 or 3. There was one leftover which i may have eaten while clearing the table for DH to load the dishwasher and wash up

That is perfectly reasonable in that case. I was picturing 1 roastie 🤣

If you had been coming i would have catered for your needs obviously. Everyone coming could eat everything offered.

Right?? The mini ones, obviously.

So we did 2kg of potatoes for two adults and a 6yo and a 3yo. 3yo had half of one as she doesn’t like them, 6yo had god knows how many, she is obsessed with them, DH and I had quite a few ourselves, we were left with a little bit of leftovers but not a huge amount. If 3yo liked them and had had a few then we wouldn’t have had much left at all!

As an Irish woman living in Scotland I want to be offended at the stereotype... But honestly eating out not in reland was such a shock to system due to the lack of potato options. Potatoes do be important

In fairness to me it his him that creates his own stereotype by making these potato related dramas 😂
I totally agree with you that it is a patronising stereotype

No no, it's a fair stereotype, I go home to Ireland and immediately I'm like 'get me garlic potatoes, colcannon and a Christmas chip' going in a few days and counting down....