What can I make for Christmas dinner?

[PersisFord]

I'm excited to be hosting this year, but dreading the cooking. I am a perfectly competent cook usually but every Christmas it just falls apart. Plus we have such complicated dietary requirements it all ends up being a battle, and then people say "dont do anything special for me, ill just eat some coal" and it gets worse. So I am wondering if there is something I'm missing.

There will be 10 of us. 1 vegetarian, 1 coeliac. 2 life threatening allergies (mushrooms and nuts) so they can't be in any part of the meal at all. One child has a real aversion to mashed potato.

Roast dinner with a veg option is logical but I'm just not good at cooking it - last year it was about 2 hours late, meat overcooked, potatoes undercooked,veg cold. And I was nearly in tears.

Best Xmas dinner I've ever had was in Australia when I was backpacking - bbq prawns and salad. Would do this again except for I eat this most days...

Does anyone have any ideas?

What is your favourite meal?
If I was in charge of Christmas dinner I would do something like a big vegetarian lasagne or pasta bake with garlic bread (including gluten free) with fancy salads etc.

Does the vegetarian eat fish?
If yes another favourite of mine is fish and chips.
You could do homemade battered fish (and fishfingers which are the best food ever) with gluten free batter.
Posh homemade chips and lots of sides like beans.
(plus some bbq prawns 🇦🇺)

Keep it simple - ready prepared are your friends.

I cook duck breasts (do a meat substitute 'breast' for the vegetarian). Much quicker than a whole bird.

gluten free gravy all around (it tastes the same, we all use it at home for gluten free DP).

Buy ready prepared veg & roast potatoes and bung in the oven (just check no nuts/mushrooms/wheat/animal fat).

Vegetarians never eat fish, mainly because it's not a vegetable

Honestly I’d stick with roast dinner but make it as easy as possible- M&S is your best friend here. You can get pretty much everything you need to just stick in microwave/oven briefly.

I can guarantee a roast that works for everyone and all you have to do on the day is put things in and out of the oven, if you'd like traditional

If you'd like not to have a roast, then do you want Christmas adjacent (gammon and chips type of thing) or something totally different?

"dont do anything special for me, ill just eat some coal"

This properly made me chuckle OP - and you just know that they'll do anything but when the day arrives. Why don't you do a buffet spread? I know that's usually resered for boxing day, but you could do a casserole or something then when you're not so pressured. You could do a nice cheese board and tart it up with grapes, chutneys etc, some hummus, olives, cold meats, smoke salmon and get some of those part baked baghettes so you can serve warm crusty bread (you can get a gluten free one for the coeliac). You could also do a dish of potato dauphinoise if you want to serve something hot. Then everyone can help themselves and avoid the allergens/meat and whatever else they can't eat!

curry!
you can make it advance and freeze, easy to do meat and veggie options, serve it with rice that's naturally gf and some side dishes you don't need to make and most won't include mushrooms or nuts.

I am shit at timings too. My roasts are epic, if I do say so myself 🤣 but timing is an issue.

The last few years I've had enormous success with making side dishes in advance and freezing them. I prep all the other veg the night before, then on the day it's mostly a matter of just writing a list with all the correct oven timings and setting alarms to put things in/take them out at the right time. A couple of pans on the hob for gravy, bread sauce etc and that's it. It helps if you have extra oven space or a warming drawer to keep finished food hot while other things cook.

I know some folks that call themselves vegetarians but they do eat fish.
I know technically it's wrong but they do.
That's why I asked 🙄

Exactly this. Either M&S or lots of prep beforehand. And keep it simple. Roast potatoes only - no need for mash. And you can make them in advance and freeze them, or buy ready made ones, they’re pretty good and massively stress reducing.

Buy the gravy ready made and get veggie coeliac gravy to sort both of those people.

Start the meat early because it will stay warm for ages under foil / towels - easily an hour if not more, so don’t worry about it being ready early. Meat can come out before the potatoes go in.

After that it’s just veggies.

Oh thank you for not just exclaiming at my incompetence! Last year I prepped all the veg the day before, bought ready made gravy, made yorkshire pudding batter, wrote a complex timetable.....and it still was terrible. I think i would really like just not to try it for a couple of years!

I am really tempted by a buffet - could do chilli in the slow cooker, jacket potatoes, rice for the potato avoider, vegetarian chilli. Plus coal for those who want it. Or a few curries I make in advance.

No fish allowed unfortunately.

Those of you who do roasts....how do you keep yourself together when its SO HOT and alarms are going off, and people are popping in with their wine in their hands asking "when will we be eating do you think dear?". I feel like its the roast potatoes that defeat me but I bought aunt Bessie's one year and still struggled.

My favourite meal is something like a big chopped salad with some nice cheese! Or breakfast cereal!

Do a roast, just plan it better. Slow cookers are useful, and this sort of thing helps keep stuff warm, worth it especially as there's 10 of you.

www.robertdyas.co.uk/daewoo-electric-buffet-server-small-3-x-15l?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=22791062118&cq_term=&cq_plac=&cq_net=x&cq_plt=gp&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22791063792&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjoqqiPDBjwMVCJlQBh1qxQl-EAQYAiABEgKN7fD_BwE

That warming thing looks like a good plan. If I did a roast I wondered about a slow roast lamb shoulder or something? Last year I incinerated a really expensive piece of beef, I followed delia TO THE LETTER and bought a meat thermometer so still no idea how....

Buy a hostess trolley- lots on ebay. You can start cooking things early and pop them in there until everything is ready. Cook the turkey overnight on Christmas eve. Buy lots of preprepared from m and s.

Okay, how wedded are you to Turkey? Because if not that wedded, here is my suggestion, tried and tested over years of hosting christmas dinner with limited space, a few challenges etc.

Rib of beef as the main. I do this because it is quite forgiving. It also benefits from hilariously long resting times, so it doesn't matter if everything else is goign a bit sideways. And you can take it out and then use the oven for other things. And, with a big piece for a large crowd, you can easily get more well cooked and some less cooked pieces. For 10 people at Christmas, I would get a large one with 3 ribs.

Potatoes - I will never understand the English obsession with different types of potato. A large massive pile of roasties are just fine. do not use duck fat, so that your veggies can also eat them. You do not need additional potato. If you really really want to go that route, go with a potato dauphinoise.

For myself, I prefer to go creamy in the form of a cauliflower cheese. This has the added benefit that I can make this the day before (but not bake it), then just put it in the oven when I take the beef out.

Yorkshire pudding.

Now, this is where it gets complicated. If you want lots of traditional veg, red cabbage and brussel sprouts are fine. You can do these on the stove top. The cabbage in particular can probalby be cooked earlier and then warmed through while you're cooking gravy. I tend to have all my stove top veggies prepped and in pots in water on the stove, ready to be turned on when I want them.

Then, for the veggie, go for a lovely tart. This can be shop bought or it can be home made. Again, you can make it mostly the day before, then cook it while the meat is resting. I did butternut and goats cheese last time. Went down brilliantly.

For starters, I usually do a mix of pates but I usually buy in a mushroom pate. That won't work for you so I'd see what other veggie terrine/pate options are out there.

Why not go for a selection of curries?

All can be made gf and a paneer curry is amazing!

Just double check with your nut allergy sufferer if it extends to chickpeas (some peanut allergy sufferers also allergic due to legume nature). If not then some poppadoms etc.

It will be your oven I never follow times of meat cooking I use a meat thermometer and check every 20 mins

Start trying to make stuff now whilst it is all calm. It definitely feels like a roast dinner season where I am, get a lovely joint of beef the size you would need for Christmas. Roast it, slice it up for your roast dinner that day and have the left overs on part baked baguettes with a pot of dipping gravy. Practise whilst there is no pressure.

Get an oven thermometer too to check that, especially the front and back of the oven where there can be temperature differences.

Dh makes Yorkshire puddings first, takes them out, then right at the end he puts them back into the empty oven to just heat through. Roast potatoes go on when the turkey is out of the oven.

I used to work Christmas Day in a pub restaurant when I was a teen, the turkeys were all cooked the day before, sliced and the slices put into a serving dish which was warmed through Christmas Day. Same with the roast potatoes, a lot of veg prep is done the day before with parboil etc.

This is all very inspiring. Will the YP be ok like that?

If I parboil potatoes night before do I just leave them in the fridge?

Cauliflower cheese is the vegetarians favourite meal. Maybe he can just have that as a main? Would it be nice if I made it gluten free do you think with cornflour in the sauce?

Although buying a tart and heating it up is within my skill set.

Which roast dinner things could I freeze? Ive got a huge freezer full of fish fingers and ice pops, i could clear a drawer for this....

We make all our gf sauces with cornflour. Normal milk for my sister and oat milk for me. You can also make Yorkshire puddings with cornflour too although to make them for the coeliac I’d recommend a brand new muffin tin just to avoid cross contamination

If you really panic and can't do roasts, do one beef and one veggie lasagne. You can even make in advance and freeze so you can enjoy Christmas day. Do some nice salads and a fancy pudding.