First time hosting tips

[KimchiLaLa]

First time hosting Christmas this year. 10 of us. Am very happy to host but bricking it! I also have a small toddler and by nature like to organise so don't want to be stressed on the day.

What are your tips? I was thinking of freezing everything I can for now. Luckily have a small, extra freezer so that should be ok.

For a start, I'll peel carrots then freeze them. But someone told me I should boil them for a few mins first. Is that true?

I can make yorkshires but I figured I would just buy and freeze these too.

Any others?

Yes parboil carrots
Red cabbage freezes well
Freeze cauliflower cheese
Electric steamer is your friend to do most veg on the day
Only do two courses

Make everything you can the day before bar the toast potatoes. They are best in the day.

Jamie Oliver's get a head gravey is lovely.

The day before par boil veg and put in fridge. You're essentially just reheating everything except your spuds and turkey. Although you could prob cook and carve the day before too but then you wouldn't have the wonderful Christmas turkey smell on the day.

Practice a few roast dinners between now and Christmas. Once you’ve got the hang of getting a Sunday roast and the trimmings to the table hot, Christmas dinner is just a bigger roast.

Make a timetable. Decide when you want to eat and work backwards. Calculate cooking time for turkey (I weigh mine when it’s stuffed using a luggage scale) and add 45 mins for resting (wrapped in tin foil and towels while you cook everything else)

Jamie Olivers gravy is a good time saver.

Make sure you have a roasting pan big enough for your turkey.

I know its not v environmental but for one day a year I dont care. Use foil trays for baking and save on washing up.

I like quite a lot of frozen stuff from Lidl. The green beans wrapped in bacon. And salmon bites for v small starters. Also non frozen. And mini stollens and whats that big cake called? Red cabbage in a jar is good.

PPs have cauliflower cheese with xmas dinner?! Crazy talk.

Pre-freeze parboiled and shaken potatoes, for roasting on the day.

Don't drink too much whilst preparing dinner or you'll totally not care about timings and end up eating at 5 instead of 3. 

Do as much as you can before - and Waitrose is your friend.

Oh yrs write your timings out.

I agree with the above tips!.

Plan your oven space and oven trays as well as your timings.

Plan your serving dishes.

I set the table in the dining room a couple of days beforehand ( but I do like to ponce it up a little! )

I also use tin foil trays to save on washing up - my tip is to pop them inside your actual tins to make them more sturdy and easier to hold.

I pre-make and freeze Yorkshire Puddings, bread sauce and gravy. I also make cranberry relish a week ahead.

If you are doing a starter make sure it doesn't need to go in the oven, as you probably won't be able to spare the space.

I also make the dessert on Christmas Eve, peel all of the veg + spuds and pop into bowls of cold water overnight. I don't generally like frozen/reheated veg or potatoes. Mash and red cabbage do work from frozen, though.

Make a few meals and freeze so that you don't have to cook for a few days either side of Christmas Day.

I

If you have guests staying over feed them a fry for breakfast. That way, no one will collapse if dinner is delayed by an hour or three if you forget to turn on the oven

Don't overthink it. It's just a big roast dinner!

We host every year for roughly 12-15 people. The key is don't do so much that you are stressed and exhausted.

We skip a formal starter and replace it with canapés and a gin fizz cocktail as everyone arrives and we exchange gifts.
Main of roast turkey, ham and sausage meat stuffing wrapped in streaky bacon, roast potatoes, glazed carrots, braised red cabbage, Savoy cabbage, roast parsnips, gravy and cranberry sauce.
Two simple desserts - Jamie Oliver bread and butter panettone tart and a trifle plus good quality vanilla ice cream just in case.

23rd December shopping delivered. Including ready made braised red cabbage, cranberry sauce and enough fizz to see you through! Make Jamie's gravy recipe.
24th collect butcher order.
Prep and par boil carrots, parsnips , Savoy cabbage and potatoes. Roast the ham and carve a slice per head to reheat. Set the table.

Work back for timings... eat at 4pm, 90min to rest the turkey then 10 min to carve so out the oven at 2.20pm... 15lb turkey roughly 4.5hrs so in the oven at 8.50am.
Wrap the stuffing in streaky bacon and pop in the oven at 1.20pm. Then prepare the canapés.

For canapés I buy smoked salmon and blinis, Parma ham mature cheddar (wrap a half slice around a small cube of cheese), goats cheese and red onion filo tarts and crostini with pate. I have a 24 hole tin from amazon for the filo tarts. Shop bought filo, teaspoon of red onion chutney and crumble of goats cheese with a few pine nuts. When cooking assemble the blinis, wrap the cheddar and top the crostini with pate. 45min start to finish.

Mix par boiled carrots and parsnips with honey, thyme and salt onto s baking tray ready for the oven. Take out the turkey and stuffing. Wrap in entire roll of foil and a bath sheet. Set aside until needed. Warm the goose fat the put the veg and potatoes in the oven.

Serve canapés with gin fizz!

50min later begin warming cabbages and ham in micro (use butter with Savoy). Warm gravy on the hob.

Carve as they are warming.

Serve in dishes for each to allow each person to eat what they like.

Enjoy!!!

Bugger forgot desserts made on 24th too!

If any of your guests are vegetarian, make sure you cook the roast potatoes in olive oil rather than goose fat, and do a veggie rather than meat-based stuffing. Everyone can eat those and it saves you having to make 2 different versions of the same things.

Yessica what do you say to peanut oil rather than olive oil? I've not tried it for roasties as such but I use it for potato wedges as it gets them a bit crispier than olive oil.

Dry hot plates, this will keep the food hot, if you put hot food onto cold or warm plates your food will be cold before you’ve eaten half. It’s espec important the more you’re serving

Borrow a hostess trolley if you can - they are fab for putting all the veg into - just more al dente than normal, an hour before dinner.

This means you can wash up the pans and then concentrate on getting the meat out of the oven, putting the roast potatoes in along with plates and heating up the gravy etc

Peel veg the day before and keep in water overnight.

Make a plan about what goes into the oven at different times and what temps.

Get other people to regularly wash up.

toomuchtooold I’ve not tried that - usually use olive oil or a mixture of sunflower and olive oil. I parboil the potatoes for 10 mins and shake them around in the pan after draining which helps give lots of crispy bits! Also preheat the oil in the roasting tin while spuds are boiling.

I hosted my first xmas dinner the other year. I pre cooked the turkey crown, made stock for the gravy and made the desserts in advance. Then I only had veg and stuffing to do on the day. I worked out all the timings in advance and borrowed an extra oven rack as I didn't have enough shelf space. I roasted carrots and parsnips together to free up space in the steamer and pre fried bacon for the sprouts first thing. Check.you have enough service ware.

However what I wouldn't recommend is to drink too many jack and cokes and trip up carrying in the dessert, but I did catch most of it and served it with my hand print in it😁

I never prepare veg the day before as I like it fresh. My tips are:

Enlist partner to peel and cut veg
Make a time table
Keep starter simple and cold, such as fruit
Buy ready made custard
Do you fill your guests with nibbles

I never bother pre prepping veg but do it in the morning with a drink but we open presents in the afternoon and I dont have small. children to entertain. I do prepare all desserts, starters, gravies and veggie mains in the previous days though and sort the table settings although I don't set it until a few hours before.

Give your guests a job to do. Either before hand (my sister brings cheese, my folks bring wine) or on the day.
Be prepared that you can’t go totally over board if you want to see your child opening any of their presents. Similarly you need to be quite tight in time if yours are like mine and have a melt down if dinner is an hour off their normal schedule!
Or have snacks!!!

For veggie roasties, roast them in ghee!! They are amazing!

Have you got enough plates,cutlery,glasses,serving dishes,spoons,

Knife to carve the turkey?

Something to protect your table from the hot dishes?
Or can you borrow one of those heated serving things with the containers to put the veg in?

Can you set aside a table or sideboard for the veg rather than being on the table?

Get your drinks all chilling in a big plastic bin with ice , you can keep it outside to save space.

Large jug of iced water

Enjoy it's a family dinner .

Oh and The Best Roasties -

Maris Piper potatoes , peel cut into three ( T shaped cut so an 'end' and two longer bits) to give the best surface area. Steam till the outer 1cm goes opaque. Cool them, shake in the colander then leave them to go cold. I don't use flour or semolina , too much like those batter coated ones in the blue bag

Hot vegetable oil, (non of this olive oil malarky here) and baste /turn them, they'll sizzle nicely .

My Yorkshires never work when I need them to, but if I'm just making a random bath , they're brilliant . So I'm going to bake , cool, put in freezer bags and hide them in our garage freezer (otherwise my DS will find them)

Anytime before

• make and freeze Delia's sausage rolls and Jamie's get ahead gravy (no star anise)
• make plenty of ice
• buy and freeze (if date not sufficiently long) M&S bread sauce

Day before

• lay table
• get out all pots, pans, serving dishes, crockery, condiments, glasses and put in position, including tin foil etc. I put little labels in each to tell what what goes in which dish
• prep sprouts (and put in plastic bag in fridge)
• make stuffing (can be two days before)
• calc timings working back from sit down time, including what time to turn the water on for veg. Allow more time than usual for water to come to the boil - the gas is often weak on Christmas Day.
• before bed get turkey and butter out of fridge and sit in pan with stuffing, lemon and onion & S&P pots

Morning

• turkey on
• pud on to steam (keep an eye on the water that may need topping up)
• cook and mash swede for reheating later
• prep all other veg (for us that is carrots, cauliflower, leeks as well as the swede and sprouts)
• cook sausage rolls and prep smoked salmon
• remove cheese from fridge to come to room temperature

That's my lot really. No starters, only nibbles with Buck's Fizz, starters ruin final prep time for the main event.

Thanks all, sorry for the late reply - you know, baby.

I've done loads of roasts but this is for ten people so double the number I've cooked for before.

MIL has suggested buying turkey now and freezing - is this a no no?

If you're going to do that you may as well buy an already-frozen one as they're cheaper. And do you have room for such a big bird for that long?!