M&S, Cook or Waitrose - 'cheating' with Christmas dinner

[Gatorade]

I have been roped into cooking Christmas dinner for 17 and although I'm a competent enough cook I just don't fancy the effort so in going to order most of it in pre prepared to pop in the oven.

With that in mind what do you recommend I order from each of the above? Who does the best stuffing/roast potatoes/cranberry sauce etc based on your past experience? I have ordered a turkey from the local butchers but I'd like to do another meat too.

You can't go wrong with either Waitrose or M&S and its not cheating. 17 is an awful lot to cater for. Use as many shortcuts as you can. The December Good Housekeeping magazine has a comparison of these sorts of things, which might be helpful

I'm road testing pre done parsnips this weekend so will mark my place here and report back.
For your other meat do a ham, tastes good with all the roast trimmings and you can do it a few days in advance.

No help but if you do buy Waitrose, check the UseBy dates carefully.

Should be ok if you order though, but anything I've bought in store has a very short shelf life (ok if you can freeze them)

Cook do really nice parsnips, red cabbage and stuffing.

Thanks for the tips do far, good idea with the road testing shopping bags, I think we'll be eating a good few shop bought roasts over the next couple of weeks!

I picked up a copy of good housekeeping this evening, thanks for that badmum, Aldi seemed to win a few categories so I may have to look into where my nearest store is. 17 is far too many to cook for, especially with a 20 month old and ten week old in tow (well, they'll be a bit older by Christmas but not much!)

I've noticed that too 70 with Waitrose, I probably need to put a small Christmas order in with them go get a close to christmas delivery slot secured whilst I'm deciding what to order.

I think I'll pop into Cook tomorrow and see if they have their Christmas things in store yet, thanks for the recommendations spotty

We've done the M&S for a couple of years and rate that over Waitrose, although I'm doing most of Boxing Day from Waitrose this year.

Hard as it is to do Christmas with little people under your feet, I have found over the years that it is so much easier being at home with all their new presents and a normalish bedtime routine, rather than carting them all off with a small selection of things. Good luck and try to enjoy having lots of people to entertain them. Oh and suggest someone helps with the washing up so you can put your feet up after the feast!

For anyone reading who hasn't got Good Housekeeping:

www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/food/the-results-good-housekeeping-2013-christmas-taste-tests

Surprised that Lidl and Aldi didn't do very well in the mulled wine section. I'd have thought they are the experts.

M and S do this amazing rosemary and garlic lamb we have for Christmas Eve dinner. I prefer it to the turkey and ham!

marking place so i can borrow some ideas

I buy everything from M&S, it's so easy but only for 6 people. For 17 you would need to buy really a lot. I love M&S red cabbage.

I did dinner for 13 last year and got most from m and s. Was lovely. Am doing the same this year, but just for 8. The only thing I did myself were the carrots and sprouts.

We had a full M&S dinner last tear and it was all delicious. The braised red cabbage is amazing and I love their mash as well. We did the turkey and our own roasties. Lovely.

My DH is the past master at this and he swears by M&S or the local butcher who have started doing some ready-prepared items. He is also a competent cook, as am I, and he actually enjoys cooking but he says why make life harder for yourself than you have to?

I am more of a fan of preparing as much in advance as possible and I make some things in advance in years when I do dinner.

I got all our veg and roast potatoes and side dishes from M&S last year and it was all good.