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?

Ham balls (US Midwest thing)
Cheesy potatoes (also US Midwest thing)
Green bean casserole (I hate it, the family insists on it)
Macadamia Nut Pie with 'real' whipped cream
White Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cheesecake
Good red wine
Good cheese and charcuterie plate for Xmas Eve
Coffee with Kahlua and real thick cream
7-Up

I think my only real essentials are stuffing (ideally two types, and if we don't have a bird then stuffed into squash) and Christmas pudding.

I don't like pigs in blankets so we never have them. This year I have two vegetarians staying so will have to think of lovely veggie stuff to make, but otherwise we always have a joint/bird for Christmas day and then a ham on boxing day. Usually the ham turns out better than the joint/bird.

I like homemade accompaniments, like stuffing, cranberry sauce etc. A good selection of cheese and chutney - this year's cheese is already ordered and chutney was purchased in the summer. Otherwise, my only non-negotiable is that I should not be spending half my precious Christmas break / Christmas Day in the kitchen, so as much as possible is purchased pre-prepared. So, finest goose fat / beef dripping roasties, parsnips etc. We don't have turkey, so the meat dish will be made the day before and kept in the fridge but that doesn't allow for me to pre-prepare veg etc, hence those things are 'bought in' .

What's a ham ball, Acrossthepond?

Roast - turkey, duck or goose, depending on numbers.
Sausages in bacon.
Forcemeat stuffing.
Chestnut stuffing.
Sprouts.
Roast potatoes and parsnips.
Carrots.
Bread sauce.
Cranberry sauce.
Gravy.

Christmas pudding and mince pies.
Brandy butter and rum sauce.

Cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese. And grapes.

Pigs in blankets. Tons of them.

Anything else I could probably cope without or replace but I need those pigs. My Christmas dinner is basically pigs in blankets accompanied by roast meat, potatoes and veg. And lashings of gravy. Obviously.

Goose fat roasties
Pigs in Blankets
Home made sausage meat stuffing (made it for the first time last year but it was delicious and super easy to prepare so it's now become a staple at Christmas).
Chocolate Log - Home made or shop bought.

Coffee, It's like ham and pork meatloaf mixture formed into tennis ball sized balls and slow baked in a tangy BBQ glaze.

Roast turkey dinner cooked by DH (it's always delicious) - has to have sausage meat stuffing, pigs in blankets, goose fat roasties and honey roast parsnips.

Anchor butter on crumpets for breakfast

Pickled onions
Cheese. Lots and lots of cheese
Pistachios
Chocolate orange

Buck's Fizz

Hagan Daz Baileys icecream - only seems to appear at Christmas, or Baileys 'brandy butter' - delicious

So much cheese, with lots of different crackers/chutneys/pickles and some leftover roast turkey.

As a pp said, all the little extras that we don't normally have with a roast dinner: stuffing, pigs in blankets, braised red cabbage etc.

Fizz at 10am

If I'm in control of the catering:

Roast Goose
Red cabbage

Lebkuchen

Everything else is quite secondary.

If I'm staying elsewhere I'm easy. Turkey is fine and I'm quite partial to mince pies too but they're not essential.

Mince pies, brandy butter, Christmas pudding, bread sauce and cranberry sauce, proper gravy, stuffing (all home made).
Booths stollen bites, decent cheese board, sprouts.

I love this thread

Champagne

Toffee Pennies from a tin of Quality Street

My mum's Christmas cake

Lots of cheese on hovis biscuits
Lots of pickles
Pringles
Boiled ham
Hollow chocolate
Salt and vinegar peanuts

throughout December

Rennie's!
Mince pies
Homemade shortbread & gingerbread
More rennies

christmas eve
Rennies
Baileys
And we usually have a buffet style tea at my SILS
More Rennie's

christmas day
Rennies
Lots of plonk
Lots of biscuits and chocolate
Lots of veg on the dinner
Trifle and Christmas cake/pud
Bucket load of different types of cheese
And did I mention Rennie's?!?!

Bread sauce, lots for leftovers too
Gala pie
Cherry liquor chocs

Twiglets.
Ritz crackers with peninsula cheese

Chocolate orange
Peppermint bark
Pigs in blanket
Sausagemeat, sage and onion stuffing balls
All the cheese
Chocolate salami
Actual salami
Caviar or avruga blinis.

Gosh, I think this is going to be a long list... maybe I should save it as I think it will be my shopping list for the festive period. All of the food we have on the day is non negotiable, I wouldn't be happy to lose any of it!
Prawn cocktail
Full roast, with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, lots of gravy and veg
Christmas pud with rum sauce
Lots of cheese of various varieties, ham, pickled onion, pickled cabbage, chutney, cheese biscuits, little sausage rolls, Yule log, Christmas cake, mince pies. Box of good quality biscuits and box of quality street.
after reading it back, I'm wondering if we are quite greedy!

Argh, I forgot to put sausage meat and pigs in blankets. Christmas would be ruined if I didn't have those festive favourites on the plate!

Chestnuts.

I loooove chestnuts

Traditionally served mixed in with brussel sprouts as my dad always did it that way, so I do too to remember him x.

And then roasties, stuffing (chestnut of course!), gravy, honey roast parsnips and carrots.

And a bit of turkey on the side which is a mere vessel for everything else in my opinion. I'd actually prefer chicken but DS loves turkey so it stays.

And recently I've added yorkshire puds.

And of course the left overs are my favourite bit as usually too exhausted on Christmas Day to enjoy eating much.

Was gutted last year to find NO LEFTOVERS on Boxing Day (grrrrrrr). I will cook more this year to avoid that disaster!

I love a Boxing Day ham with port and orange sauce or basically, anything sweet and sticky to go with it (!), but our family is now too small to do it.

Any ideas how to recreate on a small scale?

Turkey
Ham
Parsnips
Sage & Onion stuffing
Sprouts
Cranberry sauce
Pickled walnuts
Branston pickle
Stilton
Satsumas
Cheesy footballs
Olives
Brazils, pecans, walnuts
Prosecco/Cava/Champagne
Smoked salmon

Everything else is optional :)