What's your favourite bit of Christmas dinner?

[mogs0]

I prefer all the trimmings rather than the turkey and my favourite bit of Christmas dinner is carrot and swede and sausages wrapped in bacon.

I've never cooked a Christmas dinner before, we nearly always go to my mum's but this year I am hosting and wondering which bits everyone likes and which bits people aren't that bothered about.

There was one year that the carrot and swede was accidentally left off the menu and, despite it being 7 years ago, I still shudder at the memory of Christmas dinner without it.

I know there are lots of people who think it's just the same as a Sunday roast but we rarely have a roast on a Sunday so I'm a bit of a novice!

So, what are your must-haves on your Christmas dinner plate and which things would happily do without?

Another bread sauce fan. I put an onion studded allover with cloves (and I mean lots and lots) in the milk (full fat if possible). It's the fist job I do after the kids open their stockings. Then I leave it on the side in the pan I am going to cook it in then when you need it gently heat the milk with the onion still in. Add slightly stale if possible white breadcrumbs and continue to heat very gently until it thickens. Season if you like. Take onion out and serve. But it will stand too in a warm pan. That's how my mother taught me to make it and it is yummy!! Never followed a recipe!! No idea of amounts i do it by feel! Studding the onion with cloves was always my job on Christmas day now it's DS1s!

X posted with Icecream sorry! No butter in my recipe!

Good to know there's someone else who does it properly smallstuff!

Stuffing cranberry sauce & bread sauce

Cauli cheese made with red leicester cheese = lush.

Well all of it really, but mostly sausages with bacon, stuffing and roast potatoes.... yum! Oh and a nice glass of champagne to wash it all down!

I love all the trimmings. My H does it and he makes chestnut stuffing and sausage meat stuffing too. He does loads of veg incl leak sauce and marmaladey carrots.

I don't like bread sauce. Cloves are the work of the devil.

Boxing Day morning, having turkey dripping on toast for breakfast. Mmmmmmmm!

Mashed potato with turkey gravy
The turkey skin!

I love the little sausages too and the crispy bacon bits and roast parsnips. can do without bread sauce and I can't stand sprouts.

Incidentally, moln we sometimes have capon as we live in France where it is more popular - it tastes just like turkey to me, can your dh really tell the difference?

I have never studded an onion with a clove, but I remember one particularly skint and crappy Christmas when I made pomanders to decorate the house , and gave myself blisters on my fingers from all the clove studding.

I hate cloves now.

Love the trimmings, especially the stuffing and the parnsips.

Roast parsnips (parboiled and fresh breadcrumbs and vegetarian grated parmesan pressed on) its fiddly but worth it

Roast potatoes, have to be Maris Piper for us

YY bread sauce -homemade. I cook the onion/clove/bayleaf and leave it overnight to infuse

And the yorkies and sprouts

and carrots finished with buttered almonds.

bread sauce. packet job. love it.

But bread sauce looks like vomit. Eugh to cloves, reek of dentistry they do.

My fil does the nicest ham at Christmas. We have it on boxing day. It sort of stings your mouth in a good and salty way.

Forgot about the cauli cheese. I love it.

Bread sauce.
Everything else is merely a conduit.
I'd has years as a child of packet sauce (my Grandparents were no gourmets and usually did Christmas dinner) and still loved it. I made it myself from scratch a couple of years ago and it was divine. MMMMMMMMM.

I think you must start eating bread sauce when a small child, otherwise it is something you just don't get, like HP sauce, sweet potatoes with marshmallow, or durian, like other very national delicacies.

I love every aspect of the Xmas lunch.

But the highlights are the stuffings, parsnips and cranberry sauce.

Get it right wordfactory, it is christmas DINNER

What's with the "sausages wrapped in bacon" comments? Let's give them their proper name please, Pigs In Blankets .

Another vote for bread sauce, stuffing, nice gravy & pigs in blankets.

I never ate bread sauce til I was 19.I was working as a Mothers Help and my boss asked me to do some pre-Christmas preparation. I thought WTAF but I made it (to her mums recipe) and it was gorgeous!
It's not the time of year to worry about skimmed milk and wholemeal bread.
It has to be rich creamy milk,butter (and I don't like butter) and white breadcrumbs. A scraping of fresh nutmeg on the top.Yum.

I love turnip or swede cooked and pureed with butter and pepper.Can be made ahead and heated. It's lush!

I am slightly frightened by the amount of butter which goes in to the christmas dinner.

Dammit lord you have scuppered my bread sauce theory

drool........

You are making me so hungry!

I love the Yorkshire puds, roast potatoes, sage & onion stuffing, and honey glazed parsnips best. So yummy!

Ooh do you have yorkshire pudding with christmas dinner?

Does everyone else? I would never think to cook it tbh (plus no room anywhere to cook it)

Bread sauce makes me want to cry....