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.

Sirloin from Booths was lovely. Also we ordered 2-2.5kg in weight but got a joint 3.7kg so half has gone in the freezer

Iceland frozen red cabbage and apple was lovely

Waitrose sausagement stuffing wrapped in bacon was awful. It was very herby and unpleasant.

I burned the aunt Bessie frozen roast parsnips but I have had the most at my mum's and they are lovely.

We have had an M&S Christmas for year and year but last year I thought it was not good value and we had had some bits from Aldi that definitely rivalled it.

This year we had an entirely Aldi Christmas. I shopped for it all in 35mins on Friday lunchtime - no hassle, had every single thing I wanted.

We had:

Prawns with avocado and salad - perfect

Specially select exquisite free range bronze turkey - really really good
Ham which we boiled and then glazed - delicious, reallly tender
sprouts with chestnuts and bacon - about as good as sprouts get
honey and mustard roast parsnip - very good
sage and onion stuffing - delicious - as good as my home made
red cabbage with apple - delicious

We had M&S posh turkey gravy which was fine

for dessert we had

Aldi sherry trifle which was DELICIOUS! top marks!
Aldi fresh cream yule log - also really good

I give out dinner 10 out of 10 and will def go there again. They have really overtaken M&S imo

Best buy- 2.5 kg leg of lamb from Ocado for £10 - delicious, far tastier than our previous turkey and we are having rogan josh today with the substantial left overs

Starters - I picked up some fun reduced party food from Waitrose, mini brunch croissants with Bloody Mary shots, pastrami and emmental mini toasts with dill, salmon blinis, and pigs in blankets, these went down very well. We had brunch and then mid afternoon dinner, which suiied us.

Our pudding was the clementine one from Waitrose which sat in the cupboard, having been greatly reduced a previous year, it was lovely (good if only 1 or 2 people want Xmas pud)

We had a Waitrose Belgian chocolate log from their deli counter in the run up to Christmas, it was lovely - the kids chose this over Xmas pud.

The kids were very keen to try Waitrose chocolate and ginger mince pies, the extra flavours did not shine through, but they were ok.

We also tried Heston's sprouts before Xmas, they were fun but too sweet (and were much reduced).

We will be tucking into Rodney reindeer tonight. I suspect the kids will like him for novelty value if nothing else.

From M&S we had a turkey crown, a gammon, a Christmas pudding, a nut roast and an upside down trifle. It was all delicious.

Sainsbury's taste the difference Beef Wellington - followed cooking instructions to the letter but it came out a bit rarer than I'd have liked. Bloody lovely though. Will just cook for a little longer next time.

And the taste the difference veg 5 dish medley thing - nice but nothing special. I could have probably made each one better myself but as I couldn't be bothered with prepping veg this was a reasonable substitute.

Made everything from scratch except Xmas pudding which was Lidl and apparently delicious, my mum who doesn’t like Xmas pudding loved it.

M&S here.
Mushroom Wellington was nice but not big enough
But roast thingy wasn’t really a nut roast but was very luxurious, and we enjoyed it
Potatoes & veg were nice, as you’d expect
Red cabbage - amazing
Bread sauce/ cranberry sauce - amazing
Trifle - nice, but nothing exceptional

The media is reporting that some turkeys bought from Tesco weren't edible.
Any Mumsnetter bought a turkey from Tesco that was inedible ?

All m&s,
Prawn and salmon things, quite small but lovely
Pate, lovely
Beef with prosciutto, amazing! We loved it.
Turkey crown , ok nothing special
Pigs in blankets and stuffing balls, really liked these
Posh beef and turkey gravy, really liked these too.
All veg, etc homemade
White chocolate and raspberry wreath for pudding, we really liked this, it was light and easy to eat.

Boxing Day buffet
Ready cooked ham, a big hit
Upside down trifle, all loved it
Mini Christmas cupcakes, ok
Sausage roll wreath, quite strong tasting, I loved it but others said it was too much
We also had the lobster mac n cheese and tail on Thai prawns which went down really well

27th
Beef and bone pie, tasted amazing, would not have served 6-8 though, more like 4-6
Cauliflower cheese, loved it, cauliflower was quite hard though

Russell I always think M&S portion sizes are a bit small.
Or perhaps the portion sizes in our house are too big

Aldi free range bronze turkey was very good! As were most of the things we got there, e.g. cheeses, smoked salmon, salad stuff. Will get more there next time I think rather than other supermarkets.

Waitrose Christmas pudding really lovely, not too solid or dense and plenty of nuts.

The profiterole, caramel and puff pastry pud, also from Waitrose, was very disappointing and bland as where the chocolate brownie Christmas trees from Tesco that where just stupidly sweet.

Asda sprouts were tiny and on the turn two days before they were dated to go off. The best sprouts have been Sainsburys.

We ordered a Costco turkey breast joint which was delivered. Was nice enough - it was from Jimmy's Farm - but I was disappointed that it was supposed to be a minimum of 1.2kg and it was 1.14kg. I know it's not a lot but if things say they are going to be a minimum weight you expect them to be at least that and a bit more. I also had to cut a chunk out of it around a tendon and blood vessels that hadn't been prepared very well and that I haven't had to deal with on similar types of joints in the past which reduced the amount of usable meat.

I was in a local sainsburys a couple of days before xmas and they had a beautiful massive beef rib joint that cost very little more than we paid for the turkey - getting the right size would have been much less. I don't like turkey, dc aren't keen, really going to consider getting beef next year instead.

I did get the sainsburys mini sausages and they were grim - people took several as usual, struggled to eat the first one and left the rest which has never happened before. I ended up throwing the rest away which is unheard of.

We usually have waitrose mini sausages (their ordinary ones, nothing fancy) and they could go twice over. But have had 3 bad experiences ordering turkey from them recently so went for something different and couldn't be bothered going all the way there for mini sausages!

Has anyone else noticed that in most shops the ready made (savoury!) stuff is getting more and more peppery? I loathe pepper and it sometimes makes my toungue swell so I really want to avoid it. But it's becoming harder to avoid these days so I have just given up trying new things as I can't eat many of them.

Part of our order from Morrisons never even showed up - no email, not even a heads up when my husband went in store on 23rd Dec to pick it up - it was only when I checked it over when he got home and phoned them up and they said some items hadn't 'turned up'. I only ordered at the beginning of December!! The annoying thing is this happened last year too but gave them another chance - won't be doing that again!

Eloise, they're always not enough rather than too much.

We had a cheap frozen turkey from lidl. 9.99. It was just as nice as the posh 60 one we got last year. We have our turkey on boxing day though. Definitely going to do the same next year.

I was really disappointed by M&S "Festive coffee". Might as well have been instant - a let down on Christmas morning. We've had some wonderful Moser Roth chocs from Aldi - much better than any from M&S

Morrison turkey leg , delicious and so much nicer than the overpriced while meat. Yule log ,Tesco good size , acceptable amount of cream.Well worth the price, Asda really small and sickly much preferred Tesco's..

Aldi here

Pigs in blankets were v good.
Rolled turkey joint with stuffing - v good
Pork stuffing balls - ok but I think I just prefer the packet stuff
Salted caramel cheesecake - divine

Arancini mushrooms from Tesco I bought for Christmas Eve were lovely. Had some gorgeous dips from Iceland.

Morrisons Turkey crown, morrisons the best pigs in blankets and the best stuffing all thumbs up here!

We had Morrisons turkey crown and glazed ham which were both lovely. Their desserts are always good too. This year we got Trifle, Chocolate log and vanilla cheesecake which were all delicious. We got their cheeseboard too which was also nice. I switched to them last year from m&s as the store is now handier for pick ups and have been really pleasantly surprised at the quality and prices vs M&s x

Ready made pastry from Morrisons was unpleasant. I'll stick to making my own next time.

MIL got Aldi pigs in blankets and stuffing for her buffet on 23rd, they were awful. Even DC who are not fussy about sausages disliked them.

M&S roast potatoes were shit. I chucked them and did my own. Their carrot, swede and potato mash is the only one my kids eat. I got the cauliflower cheese too as it was only me eating it this year and it's lovely.

Iceland luxury mince pies were brilliant.

We also had the M&S chocolate pine cones they were nice but very rich, we also had the gluten free cheese cake and that was really nice would get that again.

My home made stuff was pretty good this year so I was pleased with my recipes but I had a couple of bad purchases that I will avoid in future

• M&S turkey (or poultry?) gravy in the tub. I didn't go for the posh one as feared the masala may be over powering but the regular one was horrid, really salty

-Waitrose bone in dry cured ham with honey and mustard. This was horrid, slimey and not naice. £35!