What's on your Christmas dinner?

[MummaChristmas]

Every year we go to my parents for Christmas dinner, but I suggested for this year to take a little bit of the load off them, we all bring something with us. So, I'm just interested in what everyone else has (totally not trying to get ideas 😉).

Bonus points for dessert ideas!

Turkey crown or 3 bird roast from M&S
Roast potatoes
Brussel sprouts with cream and almonds
Spiced red cabbage with apple
Honey carrots
Parmesan parsnips
Bread Sauce
Gravy!

Oh and pigs in blankets and stuffing

My ideal Christmas dinner plate :-

Roast Turkey & Ham
Roast Potatoes
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Pigs in Blankets
Honey roasted carrots & parsnips
Cauliflower cheese
Sweet potato mash
Gravy

I like a dessert at Christmas, but not the traditional pudding as too heavy.
I make a black forest inspired one with bottled cherries, some kirsch, good quality ice cream and amaretto biscuits. You could include chocolate sponge if liked. Pile it all in a nice glass bowl and grate chocolate over.

We always have turkey crown, gammon joint, topside of beef (as that's the combo our local butchers do), sausage meat stuffing, pigs in blankets, braised red cabbage, Brussels cooked with bacon, roast potatoes/carrots/parsnips and carrot and swede mash. It's a lot but I prep and freeze most of it in November.

We really enjoy good food in our house and that list has been curated for 14 years as the timeless favourites of our family. We also do starters of prawn cocktail/pate with crackers. Again we like to have our favourite foods. Pudding is usually a cheesecake from the supermarket as we aren't big pudding fans.

I like to keep it simple:

Turkey
Sage and onion stuffing
Pigs
Bread sauce
Red cabbage
Roast potatoes and parsnips
Sprouts
We always have the last picking of the runner beans from the freezer

Christmas pudding
M&S chocolate fresh cream log

Three bird roast and gammon
Roast potatoes and mashed (although my DH disagrees with mashed)
Brussel Sprouts (different recipies each year)
Red Cabbage
Carrots
Broccoli and Cauliflower with cheese sauce
Stuffing
Pigs in blankets
Yorkshire puddings
Cranberry sauce
Mint Sauce
Gravy

Some years I swap out the mash potatoes for carrot and swede mash (probably will this year)

There is a nice vegetarian wellington from m and s that I plan to try this year. DCs get roast chicken which is their favourite.

Roast turkey
Sage & onion stuffing
Pigs in blankets
Roast spuds
Roast parsnips
Brussel sprouts (steamed)
Mashed swede (butter & pepper)
Cauliflower (boiled)
Leeks (steamed)
Gravy

Christmas pudding with extra thick double cream

That's all you need!

Roast turkey
Jamie Oliver Get-ahead-Gravy (I add meat juices while turkey resting)
Fresh cranberry and port sauce
Bread sauce
PIBs
Roast honeyed carrots and parsnips
Spiced red cabbage
Roast potatoes in goose fat
Sprouts parboiled and pan fried with chestnuts

Ooh and stuffing of course, in the turkey

I usually make a amerreto tiramisu for dessert as its better if made the day before and other then quite a few bowls to wash up it's pretty straight forward. I use whipped egg whites and reduce the double cream to lighten it so its not too heavy.

Nut roast and roast tofu
roast potato/carrots/snips
a green veg - maybe kale?
brussels sprouts for my mum
cranberry sauce and gravy
stuffing
maybe 2 chickens or a turkey breast or salmon. Leaning towards salmon or something eggy or might have my brother do lentil shepherds pie
Christmas cake and trifle

hopefully my mum will be up to patties and mince pies, and I’ll have a fruit and veggie tray and cheese and crackers

Turkey (crown lots of butter and sage )
Gammon simmered in cider and roasted
Roast potatoes
Sprouts shredded and sauteed with chestnuts and bacon
Roast parsnips with honey
Mashed carrot and swede with butter and black pepper
Stuffing with sausage meat
Pigs in blankets
Cauliflower cheese
Gravy
Sometimes yorkshires I know it's not traditional but DS loves them
If we have an especially large crowd I'll also do beef as a third meat

Pudding I have made in the past a variety of things a citrus cheesecake with dark chocolate ganache top and ginger biscuit base is a favourite.

We're often too stuffed though so last year I just bought a black forest Christmas pud from Tesco and we ended up having it boxing day.

This sounds lovely do you have a recipe?

I’ve already got prunes soaking in brandy. I’ll have them with vanilla ice cream. Heavenly.

Pate to start, dakos for the veggies.

Turkey
Sausage meat
Pigs in blankets
Roast potatoes
Mashed swede
Honey roast carrots
Roast parsnips
Peas
Sprouts with bacon
Yorkshire pudding
Macaroni
Sage and onion stuffing
Mushroom stuffing
Cranberry sauce
Mint sauce
Bread sauce

Profiteroles for dessert

We’re having a venison casserole this year with green veggies and mashed potatoes - I don’t like turkey and can’t be arsed spending the day in the kitchen. I’m making a caramelised orange pavlova for dessert.

We’ll have a roast dinner over the holiday period with a meat of our choosing but on the day we want easy food. There will be a good cheese board etc for grazing during the evening, nice wine and pastries.

No turkey (kids don't like it)
Chicken and roast gammon
Pigs in blankets
Stuffing
Roasties
Duchesse potatoes
Roast carrots
Sprouts
Red cabbage
Gravy

DP is veggie - so he'll also do some sort of veggie pie thing.

Then a selection of puds - always a pavlova, a vienetta for DP, and a Pandoro and generally something else - tiramisu, sticky toffee pud.

Cheese and biscuits

Starter:

• Champagne and lemon prawns on thin slices of toasted sourdough: https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/family/giant-champagne-and-lemon-prawn-vol-au-vents/ (basically this but just the filling)

Main:

• Roast Turkey
• Honey and wholegrain mustard glazed ham
• Homemade Sausage meat stuffing (sage, caramelized onion and roasted chestnut)
• Pigs in blankets
• Honey, thyme and butter roasted carrots, sweet potatoes and parsnips
• Cauliflower and leek cheese
• Roast potatoes
• Mashed swede
• Brussel sprouts (sautéed in butter)
• Yorkshire puddings
• Homemade gravy (and chicken Bisto for DS, who doesn’t like proper gravy)
• DH will probably buy a jar of cranberry sauce that won’t get touched.

Pudding

• Christmas Pudding (my MIL brings it, only she and FIL like it)
• Spiced chocolate and orange tart
• Pavlova with lemon curd, raspberries and white chocolate
• Vanilla ice cream, clotted cream, brandy butter

Cheeseboard

• My brother brings and we all share throughout the rest of the day/evening

It sounds a lot but I like cooking with the leftovers and we usually have at least 10 people with different preferences.

If we have vegetarians I’ll also do cheese twice baked soufflé for the starter instead. And add either a homemade nut roast or their preferred meat alternative (most of the sides are vegetarian).

when we host Xmas we vary things a bit each time, but in the past we’ve had:

starters:
mushrooms stuffed with Boursin and garlic butter (my favourite but difficult to juggle with cooking everything else)
soup (mushroom, carrot and coriander, curried carrot and parsnip)
Ham hock terrine (ready made, got given in from the restaurant at work when we finished for Xmas - absolutely loved it!)
garlic and Stilton mushrooms on sourdough

mains: (not all the meats, different ones different years!)
chicken breast filled with stuffing and wrapped in Parma ham
duck breast
roast beef

stuffing
pigs in blankets
roasties
mash
brocolli cheese
carrots
red cabbage
roast onion
sprouts with bacon and chilli
parsnips

pudding:
trifle
Xmas pudding (I buy it and it sits in the cupboard until it is thrown away or we run out of any other kind of pudding)
yule log
mince pies

My DD is cooking this year!! She’s 20 and has been enjoying cooking at uni, and she’s quite intuitive cook and has an excellent palette.
We don’t do starters as they are too filling. This year we are getting a turkey crown wrapped in bacon from the butchers. We will have pigs in blankets, roasties , baked sweet potato, sprouts, green beans and roasted carrots, parsnips, Yorkshire pudding (she’s already tested this out making toad in the hole), stuffing, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy. No one likes Christmas cake other than me 😔 and we never seem to eat a dessert at the table as too stuffed. In the past we’ve had crumble but this year maybe our favourite carrot cake, which we can have later with tea. Boxing Day it’s got to be a ham!

None of us really like turkey so me, my mum and my SIL take it in turns to cook something different each year. I always do a theme. We’ve had location themes such as American or Japanese, one year was unusual meats (we had kangaroo, crocodile and blesbok I think it was) and one year I did a Victorian theme. I did a 10 course tasting menu another year.

This year is 1970s theme but with classic dishes everyone will love so won’t be serving everything in aspic. 🤣

So far the menu is:
Starter: prawn cocktail
Main: duck a l’orange
Dessert: a choice of Black Forest gateau or trifle (I despise trifle as does my 17yo, it’s a texture thing for us both, but DH and my mum love it and my mum isn’t a fan of Black Forest gateau so that covers everyone).

A friend has also reminded me about making some vol au vents as canapés as well. We have our Christmas dinner in the evening so they’ll be nice for a light lunchtime nibble. Christmas breakfast is always tons of bacon rolls and lots of champagne/Buck’s Fizz so lunch tends to be a lighter thing for us anyway.

Teeny tiny sausage rolls
Brie and Cranberry bites

Roast Turkey
Glazed Ham
Sausage meat stuffing
Roast potatoes
Glazed carrots and parsnips
Carrot and swede mash
Sprouts
cauliflower cheese
Potato gratin
Gravy
Cranberry sauce

Trifle
Chocolate biscuit pudding
Plum pudding (for fil)

Selection of cheese
Crackers
christmas cake
fig compote
quince jelly
walnuts

Don’t bother with a starter.

A token stuffed turkey crown from M&S (nobody loves turkey in my family, but feel like it’s a must!)

a large roast chicken stuffed with sage & onion stuffing.

Nigella’s ham in Coke.

Go mad on sides !
roast potatoes
mashed potatoes
mashed swede
caulifliwer cheese for DD
Pigs in blankets
Yorkshire puds
Maple roasted parsnips & carrots
At least 3 types of stuffing - usually a sausage meat one, a chestnut & cranberry & an American cornbread stuffing.
Steamed greens - sprouts, broccoli, green beans, peas
gravy & cranberry sauce

Raspberry or mixed berry Pavlova for dessert. We save the stodgy Christmas pudding and trifle for Boxing Day and beyond.