Am I doing christmas dinner wrong?

[PizzaPasta]

I'm hosting for the first time this year. (For 12 )

Mil asked what the menu was and was shocked that I wasn't having mash potatoe or Yorkshire puddings.

Jeanne oops sadly I have no yorkshires of the male variety on offer

Well there's a let-down.

Always have mash
Always have yorkies

Wouldn't be a Sunday/Christmas dinner without them. Then again I don't really eat roasties (do like 1 or two small ones) and I don't like most extras like stuffing, pigs in blankets etc.

Luckily when I've been to mils or my dm's they have the mash and yorkies regardless of meat.

Tesco finest frozen yorkshires are great - I'd do those!

I thought everyone had mashed and roast potatoes with a roast until I joined Mumsnet.
Since then I've had mashless roasts and it's not right, nowt to soak up the gravy.

I love Yorkshire puddings, proper ones though not Aunt Bessie's stingy little offerings. With Christmas dinner though, no way.

I don't like Yorkshire puddings but we have them every single week for Sunday dinner as dh& the children love them

I would eat very little on your menu OP. I'd eat the turkey & roasts that's all.

I will be doing :
Turkey
Quorn sausage
Roasts
Yorkshire
Sprouts
Peas
Carrots
Green beans
Mashed swede
Roast parsnips (just for dh)
Green cabbage

Ohhh ... but notso, do you not cook your roasties so they have a lovely fluffy centre? The whole point is that you cut them open and the fluffy middle bit soaks up the gravy, while the crispy outside bit stays nice and crackly.

Mash, bleugh.

(Actually, I can totally see that mash would be very tasty with a roast, I'd just be far too greedy if there were two kinds of potato and would never manage to take polite half-portions of each.)

Ignore all the nay Sayers who know no better, poor littles loves.

You have to have Yorkshire puds!! It's law and the Christmas Dinner Police WILL come after you if you don't!!

What a great thread - I'm following!

I don't have a view on yorkshire puddings, just curious what people are planning/doing

Clearly I get Christmas dinner wrong. Where does one obtain these yourkshie men?

Picturesitf I read your first line as dh8, and was so impressed

Lol! Just the 1 dh

I have to admit to sometimes doing 3 types of potatoes instead of 2. I like roasts & boiled & dh loves mash.

Never had either mash or Yorkshires with turkey. Yorkshires is for beef. Roasted potatoes is what you need.

How about doing some mini toad-in-the-hole - basically a Yorkshire Pudding with an embedded cocktail sausage. Gives her something she'll hopefully like without giving her the impression that she gets to dictate.

No mash?

Faints at the very idea.

What the Jeff do yer mop yer gravy up with?

zzzzz - thanks, I might just do the chicken breast thing. If she's lucky I'll wrap bacon around it and stuff it with mascarpone and herbs. I bloody love duck, and if she isn't eating it it only has to stretch to five, two of whom are kids. I reckon that would work.

Incidentally, my sister has no qualms at all about eating non free-range chicken etc, so she's not actually that bothered about animal welfare - I think it's just that she thinks ducks are too cute to eat. Grr.

I never do mash at Christmas. All the potatoes are roasted here, in the pan with the turkey. The parsnips too. I boil them a bit first and then drop them into the hot turkey grease. I usually do about 10lbs and it's never enough (for six of us ).

I do sprouts, green beans, and carrots, plus sweet potatoes tossed with butter, S&P and a light sprinkle of brown sugar. I make gravy, do stuffing, cranberry sauce (not jelly) and little yeast rolls.

If you were doing beef, then Yorkshire pud would be nice, but imo not so much with turkey.

Mum always used to do Yorkshire puddings with every roast she did, regardless of the meat, so Christmas dinner was no exception.
I don't remember her doing mash though, so she probably didn't - too many roast spuds to need mash!

Mum wasn't the greatest cook in the world, and used to roast all the juice out of her meat, but God she made the best roast spuds and her Yorkshires were always excellent except for when they got a bit burnt but even then

In your case though OP - it is your choice, but if your MIL would like there to be mash and Yorkshires, and you want to keep her happy/the peace, then I'd bung some on, if you can manage it. :)

I've never had either mash or yorkshire puddings for Christmas. We live in Canada now and have been to friends for Thanksgiving and other special meals and they don't seem to have roast potatoes. Which is sad really, except the last one had potatoes dauphinoise which I love (although I think works better with ham).

The OP's menu sounds lovely. Not sure what we will have yet, but only feeding four, so not that big a deal. We'll definitely have roast potatoes though, mash to me although lovely is more of an every day dish.

Right I'm tagging on to the end of this post for answers
Theoretically if you were alone on Christmas Day, what would you eat? I don't particularly want to cook as I'm in work at 4pm
No limit to budget, I have all the supermarkets nearby, oh and Booths

Alone on Christmas Day? I'd probably have cheese and crackers (naice cheese, Boursin, Brie etc. and rice crackers) with cranberry sauce on the Brie and smoked salmon on the Boursin. And some grapes.
Then I'd eat chocolate and drink wine until I felt ideally just short of sick.

If I was to cook anything, it would be Christmas pud with cream (I do love Christmas pud) - but I'd probably content myself with mince pies and cream instead.

I suppose I could have roasted a turkey leg the day before, if I were organised enough, and cut it off the bone - then I could have that in a sandwich with cranberry sauce. But that's only if I were organised.