Christmas dinner dilemma

[Citizenerased123]

I'm hosting christmas for my family so there will be 11 in total (including 4 kids and a greedy baby). My DSis and her family love turkey and insist that we have to have it at Christmas but my DH hates turkey, thinks it's a waste of money and prefers duck/ beef (which did not go down well with the rest of the family in the past!) I don't know what to make- I have even seriously thought about doing two roasts to try to keep everyone happy but I only have one normal sized oven. Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

We have turkey and roast beef - I like to please everyone as it is Christmas.
We only have one oven so I get one of the guests ( DM or DB) to cook the beef and bring it. If I didn't want to ask a guest, I would cook the turkey first, then wrap it in foil and towels and let it stand while the beef cooked.

I'd rather have duck as well tbh.
Meet in the middle - go for a 3 bird roast. Everyone is happy then

3 bird roast from butcher - if money no object. Or small turkey + beef in oven.

If you do this you will inevitably find you have not enough beef and too much turkey as despite your DSis' family's claims, when faced with them both together the beef will just be much much nicer than the turkey.

Don't most people have more than one meat on Christmas dinner?

Usually turkey and then ham/gammon or beef too.

I can take or leave turkey and if it was up to me would have gammon and then rare beef or fillet steak, or maybe lamb.

Aldi or Lidl do cheaper geese but I think they are reared in Hungary or Poland. They say you can't intensively rear geese, but it's likely the conditions they are bred in are less nice than the very expensive UK geese. But there still isn't a huge amount of meat on one and I wouldn't think one would feed 11 and if they're fussy enough to object to beef(!) I can't see them going for goose.

I don't think most people have more than one meat on Christmas day. Except for a multiple bird roast and then its all poultry.

I ALWAYS cook the turkey the day before, carve it and pour cooking juices over it wrap up tightly and warm on Christmas Day. This method has never let me down, it is succulent and tasty, leaves plenty of time to faff with gravy, trimmings and veg on Christmas Day.

Perhaps you could do the same and cook beef or lamb roast on the day.

No meat is wasted. We spend at least 2 days after Christmas Day eating leftovers in the form of another roast dinner, cold cuts and pickles and things like leftover roast potatoes and pigs in blankets fried up. After the big Christmas Day cooking marathon, there is no need to cook again for days.

On the 3rd day any leftover roast meat is sliced and frozen to be used up over the coming months by reheating in gravy. Used with frozen veg and frozen roast potatoes means I can knock up a quick mini roast dinner whenever I want within half an hour and little effort.

My mum isn't a Huge fan of Turkey so she always cooks it on Xmas eve & then the beef on the big day. Sometimes there was a ham thrown into the mix too xxx a ham would be super easy in the slow cooker too!

Steak in George Foreman?

I always do turkey ham and beef!! I love turkey and ham, sh likes it too but prefers beef so I do all 3 and no more cooking for days after

Cook turkey fist thing in the morning so it i done about 11 (assuming dinner around 2-3 )
Take out of oven wrap in foil and a couple of old towels. then wrap a quilt/duvet around this.

it not only will be nice and warm several hours later it will also taste much better having been allowed to stand for a good while.

Then oven is ready for everything else and you could fit in a duck or beef there if you like.

However the 3 bird suggestion is a good one too [smile[

*Dh not sh!

Wow, everyone's so lovely and helpful. I'm so glad I asked especially about the goose (that would have been disastrous!) I have carefully considered all options and I think I will do a ham and turkey. I think if I cook the ham on christmas eve, I can put the glaze on it and put it in the oven on christmas day whilst the turkey is resting all wrapped up as advised. Everyone likes ham (especially the cola one) and hopefully it will mean I won't have to cook again for a couple of days. And the beef/ duck can wait until new year with the in laws...