What are your Christmas food non-negotiables

[CoffeeAndOranges]

Just a bit of fun really as I'm a greedy soul who loves reading about food (and eating it).

I've got a bit less tolerant of all the excessive food-porn tv chef Christmas wankery that seems to get worse every year but there are certain things that I do love at Christmas.

Good cheeses, cured meats, smoked salmon etc to have with oatcakes, onion/chilli jam and lots of red wine or port.

A Christmas sandwich - almost better than the roast itself. Turkey (although we often have chicken instead), stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry and bread sauce, all in good granary bread. Yum.

Gingerbread/lebkuchen.

Clementines by the bucketload.

Spiced rum in black coffee.

Christmas pudding- not fussed about cake.

What will you be making sure you get in?

Twiglets.
Bread sauce.
Chestnut stuffing.
Pigs in blankets.
Crusty bread and real butter for sandwiches.
Cheese.

The traditional Turkey and trimmings

Baileys, mulled wine and port

Decent cheese, a whole ham, Christmas pudding and mince pies, spicy pickles onions.
And a box of Chocolate biscuits!

And homemade sausage rolls.

How do you do slow cooker hot chocolate??

Chocolate coins for nibbling while opening stockings

Mum's oranges in mandarin liqueur - excellent at any time but particularly for xmas morning

Mum's chocolate brandy log made from a boozy fridge cake recipe

Gran's thyme, bread, onion and parsley stuffing.

Roast parsnips

Now wondering about what a dirty chocolate cake is and why dirtier is better...

Also wondering why slow cooker hot chocolate is so good and how you make it...

And also having memories of cookery lessons at schools and making gougeres!

Sausage rolls. Everything else I can take or leave.

After Eights

Enough pigs in blankets to sink several battleships. My family like these better than anything.
Ham.
Turkey
Roasties
Yorkshire puddings
Not just any pickled onions-has to be garners (and their red cabbage)
More pigs just in case.

Yes to LOTS of pigs in blankets. (We had posh fish pie for Christmas dinner once. With pigs in blankets.)
Madeira for sipping (dry)
Fruit jellies - always had them in childhood, so essential
Clementines
Toffiffee

Lebkuchen. My favourite!
Mince pies,
Charbonnel hot chocolate,
Mini sausage rolls with apple sauce,
Pigs in blankets,
Tin of M&S Belgian choc biscuits,
Roasted parsnips,
DH's homemade biscotti,
Betty's advent cakes (same as fat rascals but with extra spices).

Those are the things we don't really have at any other time of year, (except the parsnips), so they make it feel like Christmas.

Oh and chestnut stuffing! Need that for the left over turkey and cranberry sandwiches.

I

All of the above except bread sauce and Yule log and brandy butter and cheese cake and gateaux.

Much as I love the traditional Christmas dinner - roast turkey, roasties, roast parsnips, sprouts, carrots, stuffing, kilties and cranberry sauce and loads of gravy, for me Boxing Day lunch is my favourite.
Cold turkey, cold ham, home made twice cooked chips and assorted pickles and chutneys. I love it! That lunch is non negotiable and it HAS to be at my house.

Pigs in blankets or there is NO CHRISTMAS

My mil was Danish and taught me how to make glug. Christmas isn't Christmas without it.
Spiced red cabbage - a massive effort to make cos it takes hours, so only done at Christmas
Bread sauce
Roasties in goose fat
Brandy butter to go on warm mince pies

Bendick's Bittermints.
Brandy snaps.

Pigs in blankets.

That's all.

Baileys and bread sauce (I am the only one that eats it), brandy butter for my Christmas pudding (only one that eats that as well), stuffing and pig in blankets and turkey (my cold turkey sandwiches with all the roast trimming and lashings of black pepper are lovely the next day - much prefer that than the actual dinner on the day!)

Oh gosh. I sent an email round a few years ago to family asking the same question and listing all the food things I normally make. Thinking we could drop some things. You guessed it. Every single recipe had at least one person to whom it was utterly essential.

Buck's Fizz once in the morning and then champagne on its own
Mashed swede
Sprouts with chestnuts
Honey roasted parsnips and carrots
Sage and onion stuffing balls
Hasselback roast potatoes - done in oil and butter mixture for crispiness
Bread sauce - I am the only person who eats it but I love it
Christmas pudding
Mince pies
Puff pastry nibbly bits with drinks

I'm vegetarian which influences my choices!

At least 15 types of cheese and there's only two of us.

When I say all the trimming I mean stuffing, cranberry and bread sauce not potatoes and sprouts coz that would be odd in a sandwich! Although I can't believe I forgot sprouts off the list of essential Christmas food!

Ooh quite fancy a stuffing and bread sauce sandwich, with or without cold veggie sausage!

Vegetable soup with a gammon joint cooked in it
Turkey
Pigs in blankets
Gravy
Roast potatoes
Sprouts
Carrots
Sausagemeat Stuffing
Oatmeal Stuffing
Cranberry sauce
Bread sauce

Sherry Trifle
Mince pies
Hairy Bikers Mud Pie (for DS)

Cheese truckles