Christmas food - what's worth making and what's not?

[ChipperNipper]

I make Christmas cake and Christmas pudding with my dds in the October half term . It's a tradition now so can't change even though I'm sure it's cheaper to just buy them.

I also make mincemeat at the same time as I have most of the ingredients in. That's really not worth the effort & cost but DC like making mince pies and it seems silly to buy mincemeat when I have the ingredients sitting in the cupboard.

I make spiced red cabbage as it delicious made in advance so the flavours can develop.

Made pigs in blankets one year but DH declared it a pointless task after devouring them Might do them again this year anyway.

Always make my own cranberry sauce and sausage rolls.

I fancy making truffles/peppermint creams with the DC this year. But that's more for the experience than the end result which may be inedible after their sticky mitts have been at then.

We also make stained glass window biscuits for the tree and they do look lovely hanging up. Will do gingerbread men this year. Last couple of years I have cheated and bought the 'decorate your own' from Sainsburys

I fancy making shortbread as well - that's easy enough right?

So what do you think is worth the cost/effort of making what do you think you are better off buying?

Homemade stuffing here, crumbled chestnuts and fried chopped bacon and onion, with fresh breadcrumbs, sage, parsley, thyme and seasoning, bound with some hot water.

Mince pies; special pastry and an unusual mincemeat (fig and sherry) we often have one for pudding on Christmas day with homemade vanilla ice-cream.

Roast gammon in Guinness, this is Christmas eve main meal eaten hot with gravy made from the braising liquid; then the gammon when cold is delicious on Boxing day with other cold meats, and any left over can be frozen, sliced, in the gravy to be enjoyed in the New Year.

I love the sound of fig and sherry mincemeat. Figs are loved in this house.

I'm going to add pickled onions to the list of thingsI need to be getting on with. I made chutney one year but it made so much it put me off doing it again.

Found the recipe

Should add that's the Hairy bokers chritmas pudd vodka recipe

Verypunny - you could be me! You certainly could have been quoting me. I love doing lots of baking in the run up to Christmas but am less keen on having to cook a huge meal on Christmas Day when there are more fun things to be doing. I outsourced to M&S last year - no regrets - but plans aren't sufficiently advanced for me to decide what to do this year.

To answer the OP:

I make cake and pudding myself in Oct/ Nov. I make my own pastry for mincepies but buy mincemeat (tried making it once but didn't like it - might try again in future but not this year). Last year, I made a stollen and a yule log and stained glass biscuits for the tree - just because I fancied it. I usually try to make a chutney for the Christmas cheeseboard and DH did this year's last weekend. I don't think I would bother buying any of these things (except the chutney) unless I made them.

In the past I've made and frozen - stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry and bread sauces - and then cooked everything else (including home made gravy) on the day. But this has tended to be quite stressful and not enjoyable - hence the M&S.

I've not made - and am not tempted to make - flavoured spirits (whisky and brandy are good enough for me). I've not tried a gingerbread house - although I might when the children are older. I don't tend to make an alternative pudding for Christmas Day (that's on my list of Stuff Other People Can Bring). We don't do starters or canapes or anything like that and Boxing Day buffets tend to be 'out of the box and onto the table' food.

So I cook things in the run up to Christmas that are enjoyable for me to make and eat and I buy the food that has to be eaten that I don't want the stress of preparing!

www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/eighteenth-century-chestnut-stuffing.html

I make a basic breadcrumb stuffing and then roughly split into three. Add loads of sage to one. Sausage meat and other herbs to the other. Chopped chestnuts and chestnut purée to the other.

Basically chopped and sliced onions (adds variety to the texture), cook in microwave until soft with a small amount of water (could add a clove or two if they are to your taste). Make breadcrumbs (I use a mixture of bread which is preferably at least a day old). Put onions into the breadcrumbs and mix. Season. Add some water. Not sure how much as I go by eye and how stiff it feels; you want a stiffish mix.

Split into three and add the other ingredients to each of the mixes.

thanks all - am going to try out this weekend!

Treats your name rings a bell, it probably was you!

I very luckily have a foodie husband so we have really lovely homemade everything for the dinner, including gravy prepped days in advance and homemade stuffing and lots of posh veg.The only thing bought is pigs in blankets. I am very lucky and do get to play with the kids all day. However it does mean I have to do all the washing up! I am in charge of breakfast which is usually cinnamon rolls (that come out of Sainsburys) but I do make the trifle and the gammon.

I try to make Delia's sausage rolls at some point cause i think they're lovely and I do homemade mince pies on Christmas Eve with the kids for Father Christmas but with pre-rolled pastry and shop bought mincemeat as once the kids have played with it it really doesn't matter. DH also usually makes some sort of Christmas pie for after Christmas day.

I think it depends how good a cook you are. If I was making it we may as well buy M&S. As DH is so good you can tell the difference. We never make Christmas cake or pudding but we never buy them either.

I am rubbish at pastry to buy that usually - but make my own sausage stuffing for sausage rolls - taking GOOD sausages from local butcher and adding a few seasonings and fresh herbs from the garden.

I usually make giblet stock for the gravy, but I always use Bisto powder for the base of the gravy. (Regular roasts as well).

I buy mince pies from M&S. Sometimes I make mince meat, and occasionally remember to make the mince pie pastry I have a recipe for (it's quite a sweet pastry, the only 1 I can make, and works well for apple tarts too). But 9 years out of 10, we only have M&S ones here.

I tend to do the turkey dinner pretty much from scratch at home. DH does it with me. I certainly always do my own stuffing (well, I'll do it if I get a chance, but mine is plain bread stuffing whereas DH grew up with 1 including sausage meat so every Christmas Eve there is a traditional phone call to his DM to check how to cook the sausage meat for the stuffing before he puts it all together).

But I buy in DD's birthday cake (M&S on Christmas Eve for Boxing Day), and usually 4-5 packs (or a few more maybe) of nibbles from them as well for her birthday afternoon (we are basically "at home" to neighbours and family living near us all afternoon).

I will make a few other nibbly bits though, how poncy depends on my energy levels and expected number of guests (usually more guests = simpler nibbles).

And I make my own mulled wine. Lidl's is quite nice, and I usually have a few bottles of M&S non-alcoholic version for drivers, but my own is very simple to do but has a nice spice to it as well as fruitiness.

DM makes a pudding for us every year. DMIL used to make a cake but hasn't for a few years. But we get some when we visit both sets of DPs so don't miss out. I somehow cannot bring myself to buy either as I have been let down by not matching up to the HM versions in the past.

We make cookies for Santa - basic enough (non-Christmas) recipe. I sometimes bake other things, and sometimes make chocolates or sweets, could be alone or with DD. But that depends on how manic any particular year is.

We usually put together a gingerbread house. ONE year, DD made the walls (we had a particularly good au pair that year!). But mostly we buy the kits from IKEA (and once from Lakeland), and a bagful of cake decoration bits and other small sweets to add to the pile of decoration elements, and they work perfectly well for our needs.

We have an annual special treat of Ham and Stilton potato gratin for a leftovers dinner. So I always make stock from the turkey bones for this and freezing any leftovers.

I have recipes galore to try out, particularly for sweet treats. But never find the time for that.

I don't spend hours in the kitchen on Christmas Day though, even doing it ourselves. DH and I work together on Christmas Eve afternoon when we get in from town, peeling potatoes and veg, chopping veg, making stuffing, boiling giblets for stock etc. And putting together something for dinner that night as well.

Christmas afternoon, when we get in from morning mass and most visiting (about 2ish?), we stuff the turkey and cover in bacon before slinging in the oven. We head out for 1 more visit (we turn the oven timer on so it will turn off if we ever get so distracted to forget to come home). When we get home from that, DH lights the fire, I put potatoes on to parboil and turn on small oven for cooking some nibbles. DH opens the bubbles, and once things are shipshape in the kitchen, we start opening presents and just pop into the kitchen intermittently to check on things and do the next step over the next couple of hours. So it's all very relaxed and I don't think it would make that much difference to have it pre-prepared.