What’s been your Christmas food surprise winner

[JosieB68]

I bought an Asda £5 chocolate Yule log as a sort of extra pudding, well it’s almost completely finished and wow it was delicious. Definite winner here!

Not a winner but the posh potatoes and a new recipe to cook them didnt work too well...took ages to cook so other items were slightly overcooked !

I actually made my own stuffing this year, I found a recipe for stuffing that said to boil an onion for 5 mins, then put it with bread and fresh sage in a food processor, then I added some half price sausage meat I'd found in Morrisons, add salt and pepper, then cooked it in the oven, was delicious!😁

Sent my mum a veggie recipe for a halloumi and red onion plait. She made it for me and it was delicious! Also, Sainsbury's finest veggie gravy was gorgeous.

Don't know if this counts as food but some cheap-ish Guinness flavoured choc truffle/ball things from The Range. Was a random joke-type of gift for DP, but he said they were great and is eating them slowly and thoughtfully as if they were artisanal Swiss chocolates.

I forgot to make stuffing so I'll cook it tomorrow. Had something by Plant Chef and it was quite nice.

A slow braised red cabbage dish with balsamic vinegar and redcurrant jelly. I made it yesterday, warmed up to go with goose today and it was excellent.

These two from Aldi are honestly better than anything I've had from M&S or booths

Lyonnaise potatoes went down a lot better than roasties (and I make awesome roasties).

One was the discounted Lidl cheesecake I bought, which was a flavour revelation. The other was stuffing coming out marvellously from the air fryer.

The yellow sticker joint of beef from Waitrose - an Entertaining order that hadn't been collected reduced to £9 from £25. A really good size, the suggested cooking time was just right so it was cooked exactly as we like it, and it was tender and delicious (partly down to the vast amount of butter it came with, I suspect!). I very nearly didn't put it in my basket as it seemed a bit decadent when we already had a turkey and ham, but very glad I did. Nothing will go to waste as working our way through the leftovers over the following days is the best part for us, and anything that looks likely not to be used in time gets portioned up and frozen.
Everything has been really good today to be honest, but the beef was the surprise stand-out.

@fivebyfivebuffy I agree that Aldi has been immense this year.

We had some delicious party food and I'm currently drinking some kind of chocolate baileys knock off and it's the most delicious thing I've even drunk.

My mistake was the 15p potatoes. I know I don't like all-rounders so why did I buy them and why so many? I didn't last year. They'll bake ok.
It will be leftovers tomorrow and Friday, but that's fine.

I made red cabbage to a recipe that included apples and spices as usual but also grated raw beetroot. I CBA to grate beetroot but had some cooked so chopped it up and shoved that in at the last minute - you couldn't taste it but it meant the cabbage kept its red colour.

Every year I cook everything from scratch. This year I got it all from Cook (absolutely everything) and I spent barely anytime in the kitchen, enjoyed all the family presents and general merriment. The dinner was delicious! Didn’t have high hopes, just wanted a stress free Christmas with the little ones and it’s the first time they’ve known what was going on this year. It was brilliant! Will definitely be doing it again!

The smoked salmon terrine starter was my first and I was very happy with it, served it with homemade soda bread. And the raspberry souffle - https://www.waterside-inn.co.uk/raspberry-souffle/ - with white chocolate and Baileys sauce was fucking delicious. The roast beef, yada, yada in the middle was boring!

I made the James Martin Salmon mousse to accompany seafood starter everyone loved it Jaffa cake cheesecake was great Jane patisserie recipe tasty and messy to portion out and foolproof pavlova by Jamie went down well too 😘

MIL paid a crazy amount (she refused to say how much exactly) for a Free range Kelly Bronze Turkey.
I don't usually like turkey but I have to admit it was really really good, very moist

I got a whole huge salmon in Aldi bought on the 23rd. It fed us for 2 days and multiple meals. Was £15 and 2.5kg. I cooked it whole with lemon and herbs.

A beef wellington (had this a couple of weekends before Christmas) and a chateaubriand from the local posh butcher. Both were outstanding. Paid a lot more than supermarket prices for each, but I will do the same again as the quality was so good.

DH does a Nigella ham with treacle, cloves etc each year for the in between time and that always comes out well.

DS enjoyed the Waitrose pistachio pannacotta.

I made this also for two veggies in my family after seeing it on facebook and it was a big hit!

Fig conserve to go with pate and cheese. Delicious and about £2.