Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Christmas lunch with no oven...

144 replies

penguinwithasuitcase · 27/11/2021 08:29

DP and I live separately, and while last year we had Christmas at my house, this year he's said he and DSS would like to do it at their flat.

(it's smaller and not as comfortable as my place, but they're perfectly entitled to a Christmas at theirs so I'm keeping my trap shut Grin )

Only thing that's niggling me is that they don't have an oven, so I'm trying to plan ahead and think about what we can do for Christmas lunch that requires only a stovetop....?

Any ideas?

OP posts:
Arethechildreninbedyet · 27/11/2021 14:42

@PurpleDaisies

What’s your dp’s plan about food? If he’s hosting, he should be thinking about it…
This!

It’s nothing for you to worry about. He’s a grown man hosting Christmas for his son and you’re invited!

You’re a guest, turn up with presents and Buck’s Fizz! Merry Christmas.

If not consider a table top oven for his Christmas present!

dottiedodah · 27/11/2021 14:42

As above PP said maybe some nice steaks? Or salmon pan fried maybe .Perhaps do some nice frozen Roasties at your house ,and bring them over ? A selection of mince pies or a christmas pud (presume he has a microwave) Lots of booze to wash it all down! Happy Christmas!

SunShinesBrightly · 27/11/2021 14:46

Definitely slow cooked beef joint.

Put it in the slow cooker as it is and add 1 pint of boiling water and 4 OXO beef stock cubes.

Cook on high for 6+ hours.

It will be melt in the mouth delicious and the stock will make amazing gravy.

Serve with mashed potatoes and root veg (carrots, parsnips) or green beans ❤️

SimpsonsXmasBoogie · 27/11/2021 21:46

Hilarious that people have gotten their knickers in a twist about you "hiding" the fact that you don't live in the UK Grin

Do you/DP have a Dutch oven? Or any sort of heavy cook ware with a lid? You can do a surprising amount of oven style cooking on a stove top with the right equipment. Have a look on YouTube. I used to do this when I spent a few months travelling around in a campervan with only a gas burner to cook with.

friedeggandsauce · 27/11/2021 22:42

@Clymene no because she has an oven 🙄.

My husband would quite happily cook a turkey and take it over to someone's house for them- vaginas have nothing to do with it 🤷🏼‍♀️

penguinwithasuitcase · 27/11/2021 22:55

[quote friedeggandsauce]@Clymene no because she has an oven 🙄.

My husband would quite happily cook a turkey and take it over to someone's house for them- vaginas have nothing to do with it 🤷🏼‍♀️[/quote]
My husband would quite happily cook a turkey and take it over to someone's house for them- vaginas have nothing to do with it

If only I could cook a turkey in my vagina... Grin PROBLEM SOLVED!

@Terminallysleepdeprived a risotto would be lovely for Christmas Eve –and yes, seems like a slow-cooked beef joint is coming out on top between you and @SunShinesBrightly!

@SimpsonsXmasBoogie DP has a cast iron lidded pot, yep. Will have a look for some good recipes –why did none of this occur to us before?!

OP posts:
Clymene · 27/11/2021 23:58

[quote friedeggandsauce]@Clymene no because she has an oven 🙄.

My husband would quite happily cook a turkey and take it over to someone's house for them- vaginas have nothing to do with it 🤷🏼‍♀️[/quote]
I bet he wouldn't be leaping in to suggest it though.

It's just astounding how in a situation where a man is insisting on making a situation difficult (Christmas dinner in a place without an oven), women are falling over themselves to resolve the situation. So many posts suggesting ways in which the OP can fix an issue which is of her boyfriend's making. He wants Xmas at his house which doesn't have an oven. He can come up with a menu.

Although it turns out the whole discussion is moot because she neglected to mention that they're not in the U.K. but in a country where lots of people don't have ovens. The advice on how to prepare a turkey with all the trimmings is irrelevant.

neveradullmoment99 · 28/11/2021 00:36

A pot roast. Delicious.
Mashed potatoes or fried roast potatoes.
Sprouts.
Job done.

noscoobydoodle · 28/11/2021 07:38

Sorry you have had such hard time on here OP. You sound lovely (and well...normal!) And you have had some good suggestions. We were in Australia a few years and never used the oven at Christmas- it was always a BBQ.! We once had Xmas dinner at my MiL and she forgot to mention her oven was broken (we were cooking, we arrived Xmas morning with all the food, and this was in the UK). We cooked Xmas dinner on the hob- a big pan of chicken and pigs in blankets and sprouts (cooked first and covered in tea towels to keep warm), pan of potatoes (to have mashed and boiled), microwave steamer full of veg. We also did a gammon cooked in Coca-Cola in a pan for boxing day and had it with breads, crackers, cheeses, pickles etc. It was all lovely and to be honest after a few glasses of fizz and plenty of chocolates, sweets, nuts (with a nutcracker of course) and mince pies who cares about dinner anyway!

GerbilCurse · 28/11/2021 07:50

If you're looking for a special occasion alternative to roast potatoes, sugar browned potatoes are great and require no oven. My husband is Danish so we always have these at Christmas

nordicfoodliving.com/danish-sugar-browned-potatoe/

VestaTilley · 28/11/2021 08:03

Let him worry about Christmas lunch. He’s hosting, he needs to work it out.

Why haven’t they got an oven..? How does he cook for his son usually?

Please don’t offer to do the cooking and take it round. If he really wants to host he could do a lovely chicken casserole, braised lamb shanks or beef stew just using the hobs. Or has he not got a stove top either?

Namechangeforthis88 · 28/11/2021 08:14

I have fond memories of Christmas dinner in a student flat in St Petersburg in the 90's. The oven wasn't big enough for the number of people, but we coordinated timings with another flat of British students two floors above and people ran up and down the stairs with trays of roast potatoes.

Christmas was not a big deal in Russia (certainly not then, can't speak for now, celebrated on a different Day anyway), and as we were all just there for a term, we made our own decorations, garlands from cut up magazines (they kept falling down), salt dough tree decorations, using a vodka bottle as a rolling pin (someone came home drunk and ate one, thinking it was a biscuit, the dough had fallen on the floor and all sorts, she was fine).

I think a cobbled together, rag-tag Christmas focusses the mind on family, friends, love I guess, maybe the true meaning or something.

penguinwithasuitcase · 28/11/2021 08:41

@VestaTilley

Let him worry about Christmas lunch. He’s hosting, he needs to work it out.

Why haven’t they got an oven..? How does he cook for his son usually?

Please don’t offer to do the cooking and take it round. If he really wants to host he could do a lovely chicken casserole, braised lamb shanks or beef stew just using the hobs. Or has he not got a stove top either?

RTFT, darling.

For the love of god.

OP posts:
sandgrown · 28/11/2021 08:46

Last year the turkey would not fit in my oven so daughter cooked and brought but with her . It was wrapped in foil and tea towels . After “resting” for over an hour it was the most moist turkey we have ever had . Veg can be done in an electric steamer. Not sure of an alternative for the roasties and pigs in blankets but Christmas pud can be microwaved.

JumperandJacket · 28/11/2021 08:59

OP, I have been making this a lot recently www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/boeuf_bourguignon_25475 It’s really lovely and benefits from being made a day or two early and reheated so less faff on the day. Think the recipe says put it in the oven but you can do it on the hob on the lowest heat. Plus some buttery mash and greens.

penguinwithasuitcase · 28/11/2021 09:03

@Namechangeforthis88

I have fond memories of Christmas dinner in a student flat in St Petersburg in the 90's. The oven wasn't big enough for the number of people, but we coordinated timings with another flat of British students two floors above and people ran up and down the stairs with trays of roast potatoes.

Christmas was not a big deal in Russia (certainly not then, can't speak for now, celebrated on a different Day anyway), and as we were all just there for a term, we made our own decorations, garlands from cut up magazines (they kept falling down), salt dough tree decorations, using a vodka bottle as a rolling pin (someone came home drunk and ate one, thinking it was a biscuit, the dough had fallen on the floor and all sorts, she was fine).

I think a cobbled together, rag-tag Christmas focusses the mind on family, friends, love I guess, maybe the true meaning or something.

Ah –what a picture you're painting! It sounds so much fun!

I can imagine this being turned into a brilliant movie –like Stanley Tucci's 'Big Night' but set in a Russian student building Grin

OP posts:
Shehasadiamondinthesky · 28/11/2021 09:03

Why the hell are you planning the food? FF's. If he's so insistent on having it as his place with no oven then he can sort it out it isn't your place. I'd bring something as a polite guest but that's it.
I really don't get why women run around enabling men's choices!!

penguinwithasuitcase · 28/11/2021 09:07

@Clymene you know nothing at all about what my partner would 'leap in to suggest'.

Maybe you have a lazy arsehole husband, I don't know. But mine is my best friend and the absolute antithesis of the kind of knuckle-dragger you're implying here. And I will not stand some stranger on the internet assuming the worst of him because she can't conceive of a partnership so easy and equal that a woman doesn't feel put-upon by asking a food-related question on the internet.

If you're such a feminist, give me some goddamn credit.

The fact that you chose to fixate on WHY he has no oven has no bearing whatsoever on WHAT we might cook for Christmas Day (as many, many PPs have managed to wrap their heads around).

Even if we lived in a country where everyone had twelve ovens each, we still don't have one in the flat where WE are spending OUR Christmas Day and my question about what a nice thing to cook on the stovetop on Christmas Day would still stand. Nor would it be nearly as complicated a question as you and some of the MN hyenas seem to be bent on making it.

And again, if you could bring yourself to read my posts instead of flinging lazy MN generalisations around, you'd understand that after the last 18 months of him not being able to work, living in a not-great-but-at-least-affordable flat that he doesn't find comfortable simply to be close to his son, I am 100% on board with us finding a way to have Christmas together there.

Yes, let's attach some nice memories to that flat instead of just the stressful ones the last year.

Yes, let's give his son a lovely Christmas in the flat he feels more 'at home' in, instead of at his dad's girlfriend's house, which he sweetly spent last Christmas in with no trouble, but is quite understandably not 'home' for him.

DP is not insisting on anything –he requested and I said "Yes, absolutely, I get it. Let's find a way to make it work."

So me and my vagina are just fine, thanks –the only part of any of this that's been unpleasant has been the BS I've had to field on here.

OP posts:
Oftenithinkaboutit · 28/11/2021 10:02

Bloomin heck OP
You sound like you’re about to lose it

LH1987 · 28/11/2021 10:10

I have lived in a country with no ovens (China) and we managed a lovely Xmas dinner.

We did
slow cooked beef stew which was made with beer and had chive dumplings
Buttery mashed potatoes (maybe you could do truffle mash though?)
Garlic greens

For pudding we had a giant tub of ice cream with crushed Oreo’s (heaven)

Happy memories for me!

LH1987 · 28/11/2021 10:12

Also I planned and cooked the meal as I do every year not because I am a woman, because o enjoy it!

The OP asked for ideas not comments on her relationship and lack of oven.

JumperandJacket · 28/11/2021 11:11

@Oftenithinkaboutit

Bloomin heck OP You sound like you’re about to lose it
I don't blame her, to be honest.
Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 28/11/2021 11:17

Neither do I.

TheOneWithTwoParties · 28/11/2021 11:33

I just posted to give a round of applause to the OP's last post. I hope the three of you have a fabulous Christmas.

Somebodylikeyew · 28/11/2021 11:42

Well said, OP.
Hope you have a lovely day :)