How did M&S or other supermarket Christmas food go down?

[WeAllHaveWings]

M&S Christmas for us, some disappointing items this year.

Turkey (full deboned turkey £65) was very nice, but the normal M&S deboned crown I usually get for £32 which was sold out is just as nice.

Chestnut stuffing and pigs n blankets wreath - pigs n blankets nice with maple glaze. Stuffing bland.

Luxury pigs n blankets - ok, nothing special

Standard Sausage meat pack which we rolled into balls - nice and tasty

Profiteroles - soggy and tasteless

Raspberry & processco panacotta- not nice at all. Too boozey and rubbery tasting

Will probably orders early next year to get the cheaper turkey crown and still get the sausage meat, but off M&S trimmings and desserts from now on.

It’s the first time I didn’t cook this year and tried M&S: the mushroom wellington and the nut toast was really good but no idea how they work out portion sizes as they were just about enough for 2 adults and 2 kids. The vegetable portions were ridiculously big though.... 1 kg of roast potatos for 4??? We eat 2 each, if anything.
I loved the profitteroles though, they were a bit soggy but not dry at all, finally found one that comes with enough ‘sauce’.

Mix of Ocado, Waitrose and home-made all tasty. Frozen boneless/rolled turkey thing from Ocado was surprisingly good. Waitrose Royal iced Christmas cake is the best I've had in years.

We had a few m&s bits:
Pigs and blankets and stuffing balls - gorgeous and tasty
Red cabbage with Apple - really really nice, full of flavour
Cauliflower cheese - ok but not amazing
Posh turkey gravy - beautiful and light, very tasty
Bread sauce and port and cranberry sauce - both gorgeous, especially the bread sauce
Cheese board - lovely selection and the crackers and chutney were delicious
Salted caramel log - bloody lovely and I still have a bit left which I am going to look forward to later
Chocolate orange bombe - MIL bought this for us, was ok but nothing special, DH and kids not keen at all though as they said the orange tasted artificial

Morrisons

Stuffing slab with chestnuts amazing.
Sprouts with Gammon very good.
Brie and cranberry tartlets amazing.
Turkey pacel so moist and tasty.

We got turkey, sausage meat, sausages and bacon to make pigs in blankets from the butchers. It was all lovely. We then got veg, Yorkshire, Belgium chocolate cheesecake and vanilla ice cream from waitrose all yummy.

Lidl Christmas pud was gorgeous, not too dense, fruity and nutty, really boozy but lovely with it. So impressed.

So disappointed with my first M&S Xmas dinner

Pigs in blankets ok
Stuffing Kidda rubbery and abit chewy
Veg pack £15 for 3 bags of veg and some roastys.
Raspberry pannacotta got refused by everyone
Only good bits were pate and choc pine cones

Waitrose profiteroles were lovely, their panecotte (sp) was okay. Their 1 mince pies still the best.

Tesco beef joint was good, but I'm never ordering online from them again!

Veg all from Aldi and mostly 19p, prepped by me but really tasty and amazing value. Pigs in blankets, stuffing balls and sausage meat all from Aldi - really tasty.

Turkey from local farm shop really lovely too.

No puddings for us, everyone is always too full, although we did have Christmas cake made by DS and blinking gorgeous.

Aldi is my biggest winner, all bought on Saturday and hardly any queuing, friendly staff and amazing value for money. We have Boxing Day now again with bits from Aldi. The whole shop cost me £90 and that was with us chucking in extras.

I promise I don't work for them nor receive any monetary gain from extolling their virtue. But shopping there has saved me a fortune this year

Waitrose goose fat potatoes were beautiful, soft inside, crispy on the outside. M&S lamb shanks very good too.
Had the M&S chocolate log dessert and it was ok, really more cake than dessert.

Did anyone have that Heston melting sprout dessert thingy?

Was really disappointed with M and S this year. Party food was ok but not amazing. Piggies in blankets same as aldi ones. Everything overpriced compared to other places and quality no better.

We had the triple choc cheesecake and it was no nicer than a normal chersecake.

And a lot of stuff I bought had really short dates on which I didn't realise until I got home. Went on the 22nd and bacon, piggies and some party food all ran put the same day.

All homemade this year except for the Aldi Golden Topped Pudding which was absolutely delicious.

we had the rib of beef from Aldi and it was brilliant. £20 and fed six of us with leftovers. All my veg and sides were from Aldi too, no complaints at all.
Profiteroles from co-op that i picked up on a whim as they were half price went down really well.

The Sainsbo's mushroom wellington was absolutely delicious probably one of the best veggie xmas dinners I've ever had.

Except it wasn't Sainsbo's it was M&S come to think of it... 🙄

Like frozen turkey for the second year running for us. It was perfect, i used to buy from the butchers never again.

The stuffed rib of beef from M&S was ok. Ready made pigs and stuffing from Morrison's were lovely. So was their cauli cheese.

We had an Aldi Christmas. The turkey was amazing, we were massively impressed.

We had an M&S Christmas last year and decided it wasn't worth the money. Aldi all the way from now on.

Everything this year came from Iceland and was excellent, especially the turkey and parsnips. Much better than previous year’s M and S stuff. A fraction of the price, too.

m & s turkey crown with bacon and stuffing - very nice but the claim that it serves 8-10 is a stretch. 4 of us ate about 2/3rds of it so 6 at best.
Turkey gravy, quite bland and salty.
Salted caramel chocolate pudding, tasted very nice but far more chocolate than salted caramel.

My turkey crown from Lidl was one of the best turkeys I’ve ever had.

Gorgeous turkey breast joint from the local butchers - we have bought from there for years and never been disappointed.
M&S stuffing balls - very good
Aldi pigs in blankets and turkey gravy - excellent
Aldi sprout stalk and Chantenay carrots were really good
Waitrose tenderstem broccoli and red cabbage with apple were really nice too
Aldi 18 month matured Christmas pud was amazing served with their Bailey's extra thick cream - yum!

I would agree that Aldi was really civilised on Saturday morning with full shelves and minimal queueing. I'll definitely buy from there again next year.

All from Morrisons:

Turkey crown and thigh joint with stuffing - lovely
Christmas tree smoked gammon - small for how much I paid for it and not nice at all
Roast potatoes- quite crap, too many tiny ones then a couple of big ones, very uneven
Crab pate starter thing - delicious
Chocolate pots - nice but very very rich
Raspberry bar - delicious and light

We had the monkfish wrapped in pancetta (M&S) which was really nice. Pigs in blankets were fine - didn't get posh ones. I likes the melting chocolate pudding but the kids weren't keen. Hopefully next year I'll ha e a bigger kitchen and will do homemade.