Christmas meal planning

[GlumyGloomer]

Last year I had a dream, to plan for two weeks worth of meals covering the Christmas and new year period, and batch cook in the weekms before so that I could concentrate on the big meals and not have to worry/mess up the kitchen on the other days.
It sort of worked, but some of the batch cooks worked out better than others, and it wasn't quite the triumph I was hoping for.
So, does anyone have any great winter meals that freeze well which they're willing to share?
Happy to chat about all festive food plans too

For something hearty and veggie, the green roasting tin’s recipe for beetroot bourgignon is a great one to have in the freezer. It’s an easy reheat and lovely with crusty bread. I sometimes add dumplings too.

Bbc good food burnt aubergine chilli is a nice one that freezes well.

ooh! I do not batch cook i am afraid but have heard that stuffing freezes well.

But, my festive food is as follows;

Christmas Eve

seafood buffet with champagne

Christmas Day

Goose with apples; roast potatoes; cranberry jelly; peas; game chips; bread sauce and honey carrots.

Christmas pudding icecream (which is basically vanilla ice cream mixed with some brandy, broken up bits of stollen cake, dried fruit and topped with a chocolate sauce

Boxing Day (secretly my favourite)

Honey gammon; cauliflower cheese; green peas and cranberry jelly followed by cheese and fruit.

Cannot wait!

First item on my list is goose ragu.
Goose legs ordered from Farmisons Christmas range.
I use this recipe:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/venetian-duck-ragu/amp
But instead of pan frying the goose legs I roast them in the oven to render a decent amount of the fat out. After that I follow the recipe.

@3GreenPullups

ooh! I do not batch cook i am afraid but have heard that stuffing freezes well.

But, my festive food is as follows;

Christmas Eve

seafood buffet with champagne

Christmas Day

Goose with apples; roast potatoes; cranberry jelly; peas; game chips; bread sauce and honey carrots.

Christmas pudding icecream (which is basically vanilla ice cream mixed with some brandy, broken up bits of stollen cake, dried fruit and topped with a chocolate sauce

Boxing Day (secretly my favourite)

Honey gammon; cauliflower cheese; green peas and cranberry jelly followed by cheese and fruit.

Cannot wait!

Can I come please? I promise to be very quiet

@PurpleDaisies the chilli looks perfect, adding it to the list!

@3GreenPullups that menu sounds great. Not quite sure what we'll have for Christmas lunch, we seem to do something different every year. Boxing day we dig out the raclette grill. It's probably my favourite day too

No need to be quiet @Finfintytint ! It's usually just us and inevitably it's me in the kitchen on my own with some chardonnay belting out Christmas tunes! I'd be glad of the company!

I don't know if it'll help much, but here's my meal plan from last year - just breakfasts and main meals, because that's all we could comfortably fit in, with all the grazing!

Weds 23rd:

Cocktails and canapes

Mini sausages
Sausage rolls
Camembert and cranberry filo parcels
Cheese straws
Cheese gougeres
Cheese and pineapple on sticks
Salami
Smoked mackerel paté

Christmas Eve:

Full Irish breakfast

Kedgeree

Christmas Day:

Smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, soda bread

Bird, ham, stuffing, pigs in blankets, parsnips, roast potatoes, sprouts, carrots, gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce

Ice cream and boozy fruit

Port and Stilton

Cheeseboard, biscuits, grapes, apples, paté, pickles, Christmas cake

St Stephen's Day:

Bacon butties

Turkey, ham, salad, mashed potatoes, pickled walnuts, cranberry sauce

Mince pies and custard/brandy cream

Sun 27th:

Eggs benedict

Steak and chips

Chocolate fondue

Mon 28th

Pain au chocolat

Chicken curry

Oh that all looks good @Inextremis

I think a kedgeree might do us nicely on the 27th. .... I need to find my planning notebook...

Good hearty meals for winter that freeze well:

Oven meals:
Lasagna

Cottage Pie (either beef or lamb mince)

Chicken and mushroom pie with pastry (or mashed potato) top

Smoked fish pie: Poach smoked white fish (eg. cod, haddock) in milk, flake and scatter in pie dish, along with small florets of brocolli. Make white sauce with the poaching milk and pour over. Top with mashed potato, a good scattering of breadcrumbs over the top, (and a handful of grated cheese if desired). Freeze, thaw, bake.

Also, consider having some joints of chicken (drumsticks, thighs etc) that you season/marinade and freeze, so you just tip the bag into an oven tray and roast.
Can also do veggies this way in another bag.
I have not yet figured out how to do potatoes for freezing though - but I often get a bag of baby potatoes, slice diagonally across the middle and marinade in olive oil, garlic granules, good pinch pepper and good pinch chopped rosemary - in a ziploc bag that I can tip into a tray either later in the day or the following day to roast.

Sauces for a pot:
Chilli con carne or vegetarian chilli

Spag bol
Tomato sauce with chilli (useful to throw in a handful of prawns, fish to quickly cook as it heats, or precook chicken/bacon and add sauce, while pasta cooks)

Various Indian curries - Vadagam, Korma, Butter Chicken, Lamb Rogan Josh etc..
Thai curries - red or green

Mac'n'cheese (mine involves any pasta shape but shells and penne are good, lots of cheese sauce, bacon lardons fried up, and lots of extra veg like onion, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, courgette, peas, etc - something I tend to do as a large pot and freeze leftovers, which are possible to reheat in pot but I usually do as a pasta bake with extra grated cheese on top).

Stew-types
Chicken chasseur
Beef Bourginonne (sp?)
Lamb or chicken tagine
Beef and Guinness stew

Also make space for sides like veggies already prepped, to cook or reheat (or bags of good frozen veggies from SM). Plenty of garlic bread for meals it can accompany. Home made naans for indian meals (or boxes of pre-made puppodums in the cupboard that you don't have to fry up).

I think in the run up to Xmas Eve i,ll be serving stuff like
Shepherds pie (I add peas and corn to mine) and green beans
Cottage pie with peas and carrots
Veg curry with rice
Trad stew and dumplings.
All the above can be prepped into large foils and frozen ready to defrost and oven heat.
And an egg and chips night in preparation for the richness to come.
I start my Xmas menus for Xmas Eve dinner.

Oh, some great ideas here, thanks

Don't forget about soups. Good for starters and lunches

Puréed parsnip with a sprinkling of ginger freezes well and you can do it advance

I also forgot, get a good range of part baked bread in too, as many meals will likely involve the oven and it means fresh bread for that meal or nice rolls for the next (leftover turkey sandwiches etc) saves trips to supermarket for fresh bread.

This is going great, 8 meals left.
Good tip re bread, but I have a bread maker so no worries there.
Soup features quite often! Love soup.
And dd1 has requested....chicken chargrills 😅 which I suspect will be her favourite forever no matter how good I get at cooking from scratch.

We batch cook bean chilli, veggie bolognaise, dahl, and chana massala, and then double up on lasagne/shepherd's pie and either keep the second one in the fridge for a few days time or freeze - the dishes take up too much space to do more.
We also make extra cheese sauce (it's a vegan recipe involving butternut squash and cashews so much more of a faff than a traditional roux based cheese or white sauce) and curry sauces to keep in the freezer for an easy meal.

I tried the freeze ahead roast potaoes last Easter (my lockdown potatoes and I didn't know if I could get more ) they were not great TBH . The recipe stated boil x minutes no longer they weren't pre-boiled enough .

I do make vegetarian lasagne and freeze
Soup - lentil or carrot&coriander ( I don't use cream in mine)
Vegetarian chilli
Macaroni cheese -slightly undercook as it will soften a bt in the sauce

Apple crumble - cook the apples and make the crumble , freeze in seperate containers till needed

Baked cheesecake freezes well

I do some vegetable prepping in the 24th -sprouts,carrots , swede cut /peeled/crossed then put in bags in the fridge .
Parsnips and potatoes on the day .

Oh what a treasure trove of a thread!

Since a lot of these are oven based it might be nice to have some pies or crumbles to pop in and warm through as the oven is cooling down. I keep a bag of chocolate chip cookies in the freezer and pop a few in for a dessert after a roast . Yummy with a spoon of ice cream.

Shepherd’s pie, fish pie, cottage pie, sauce to add to ham and turkey for a pie filling, frozen pastry if you don’t make your own, curries, chilli, lasagne etc all freeze really well.

Also beef stew and lamb casserole etc.

If you don't mind too much bird confit duck legs are brilliant. You slowly cook them in fat, I used Christmassy flavours in mine, on the day you want them scrape off the excess fat and roast them . The excess fat makes wonderful roasties. These can be made a while in advance and need to be stored somewhere cool rather in the freezer.

Oh good reminder @goose1964. I've been wanting to try confit duck legs for ages. What do you use to flavour them?

2 week meal plan done! Total of 15 things to cook in advance. I'll make a start in the next week or so, and post the recipes as I go.
Will be subject to change obviously, as I should probably allow the family some input....
Not started on planning the Christmas lunch or all the baking yet.

Made this today:
www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/healthy/chicken-tinga/
So far Dh has vetoed two things off the plan, and dd1 has decided she doesn't like soup

Does anyone have a good gingerbread recipe? I've tried a couple and they always turn into blobs in the oven.

We use this gingerbread recipe. They don't take 15 minutes though, unless you want them crunchy. 8-10 max.