What's on your meal plan for December?

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Spending this morning planning meals for December, I'm trying to be mindful that things are about the get hectic with school, events, work etc.

What does everyone else have on their meal plan this month? Looking for inspiration!

I've not got very far, but up to now I have:

Birria tacos
Sausage pasta bake
Pizza
Hot pot

And also, what do you have on Christmas Eve?

We have a takeaway for Christmas eve.

Things I’ll be prepping today (to go in freezer/fridge/cookie jar) for this coming week)…

-a Jamie Oliver recipe for a chorizo, kale and potato soup
-scotch broth (I’m using the Thermomix recipe for this, but subbing lamb for smoked gammon)
-an apple and celeriac soup (again, a Thermomix recipe)
-celeriac and potato gratin (I’ll use with cooked chicken thigh fillets or sausages)
-porridge (to go in fridge for this week’s breakfasts - we add nuts/seeds/fruit as we want to our portions)
-cheese scones and veg muffins to go as snacks, breakfast on the go
-some butter biscuits for snacks.

I’ve got stuff I want to use up. I’ll cook up these recipes, plus the sausages and chicken thigh fillets and then freeze into single portions. I work FT (I’m a nurse and work shifts), my son does shift work (he’s taking some months out before joining up) and my daughter is at school, so we grab these frozen meals and use for lunches or suppers as and when (I don’t finish work til 8pm if I’m lucky and want to know the kids can grab/reheat a healthy meal for supper). My daughter won’t eat sandwiches but will happily defrost and microwave one of these meals for her food flask (to take to school).

on Christmas Eve, we normally just have a normal meal or something simple. Christmas lunch is roast chicken (we prefer that over turkey), with potatoes, Yorkshire puds, veg, pigs in blankets and stuffing. Pudding is sticky toffee or a choc sponge pudding. I do like Xmas pudding though! I’m from the ME so an English roast is a rare treat in our house! We have mince pies and cheese/biscuits. I’ve made some plum paste and chutney already to go with this.

You’re right - it’s bedlam here too with parties, work deadlines, school and extracurricular events and colds striking us down on a loop!

I’m cooking a small gammon today so I have a reason to check if my green tomato chutney is mature enough to eat at Christmas.

Hake is a bargain at the moment, and my favourite white fish popped up in green Thai curry last week so it’s a Spanish dish this week.

I picked up some lamb shoulders half price so we had a roast last week and the leftovers will be a traditional meat and potato pie today

Tomorrow I’ll batch cook minestrone or curries tomato/red lentil soup for dh and I to have for lunch this week

So the plan will be:

S: meat pie with green veg
S: Spanish-style hake, chorizo and white beans
M: duck pancakes with hoisin sauce (30% off in Tesco)
T: chickpea curry
W: stuffed peppers (easy to prep the herby lamb mince & orzo the night before then pop in the airfryer next day - complete meal).
Th: ready made pizza. I’m not a saint, and Thursdays are hellish busy so I give myself a cooking break!
F: another easy-cook day so it’ll probably be a sausage casserole I’ll make before work with frozen mash

Christmas Eve - I usually wait for inspiration or failing that it’ll probably be the kids favourite: creamy home made carbonara! I can make it properly with eggs but the kids prefer the milky style. I’m working in the morning and dh is working all day, and I’m catering the family on Christmas Day. So it’ll be an easy dinner just to fill us up and not make a mess in the kitchen whilst I’m getting everything ready for The Big Day.

happy Christmas to you OP, hope you find your December mealtime groove x

@youalright we have done that previously too, theres only 3 of us this year so it seemed a bit silly to order food for just me, DH and DS but it would take a lot of the stress out, I could even send them off to the McDonald's drive through!

@TicTac80 lots of great ideas, thank you. Our house is similar in that we're all in and out, DH is mainly working away until Christmas break so it's just me and DS but we have lots of school events coming up and I've booked the morning off work for this, finishing early for that etc. I wanted to make the food side of things as stress free as possible!

@Insomniatica your meal plan sounds perfect, happy Christmas to you too!

I'm hopeful if I just get a rough plan figured out it will take some of the stress out of the month. Even if my current meal plan had 3 days dedicated to pizza

Our meal plans during December are not any different to what we eat any other week at this time of year. Quick and easy meals tend to be something like baked potatoes, pasta, omelettes, stir fry, wraps or something home made which has been frozen and just needs heating up (curry, dahl, lasagne, chilli, soup and dumplings etc). So on evenings where we don’t have much time, or can’t be bothered, we will have one of the quick and easy meals.

The rest of the time it tends to be a vegan main/meat, potatoes and veg with the odd trying something different.

I doubt you would want to follow our diets (vegan for one and low sat fat for the other), so I won’t share anything more specific.

Christmas Eve is baked potatoes with has been a tradition for a couple of decades. After doing prep (cooking and cleaning) for Christmas Day in the morning, I want to keep it simple and low effort in the evening.

So far we have:
-beef tacos (beef already cooked and frozen).
-Nigel Slater’s sausage, bean and leek thing.
-Wild boar stew.
-Thai red fish curry.
-Chicken tray bake.

I’ve whittled down a list of recipes everyone in the house will tolerate which I can prep in the mornings. I like getting up at 6am, even if I don’t enjoy the smell of cooking at 6.15am! I am already on my “winter cycle” of carol/classical playlists on Alexa.

If you have literally everything ready - prep done or maybe main fully cooked, rice or pasta in pans, table laid, water in the kettle - you can often pull off quite tricky meals in 20 mins. No one appreciates this skill in my house (I’m not a good cook) but I impress myself daily with ability to get everyone fed on time given we don’t have a single weekday where everyone can sit down and eat together!

I’ve only planned what we’re having for special/celebratory/entertaining meals so far:
Seafood lasagne - will make ahead and freeze
Mushroom bourguignon with rosti topping
Spiced carrot and parsnip pilaf
Caramelised onion gnocchi gratin, served with roasted tenderstem
Chestnut and cranberry falafel with jewelled couscous
Roast cauliflower tagine - make ahead and freeze
Honey-roasted carrot and whipped feta tart
Cauliflower cheese and walnut soup
Smoked salmon and cream cheese frittata
Crab orzotto

OP the birria tacos sound good, do you have a recipe for them?

the following portioned up stuff is in my freezer at the moment:
-potato and leek soup
-rice pudding
-bolognese sauce (I used Quorn mince for this). We just cook up the pasta as and when we need it.
-savoury mince (I’ve added veg and potatoes to it, so it’s a complete meal)
-lemon and zuchini bean meal (from plantbaes website)
-marry me chickpeas (plantbaes recipe)

I realise how fortunate I am: I’ve got freezer space to put in quite a few meals, and the means to cook these meals. But also my kids will happily eat this stuff. My daughter is a weird reverse sort of fussy - she won’t eat a basic sandwich or an apple/fruit, but give her one of those meals, or an insanely spicy curry etc and she’ll demolish it. She won’t eat cheese (uncooked) but will fry up halloumi slices with chilli and honey.

I’d love to see some ideas. My husband is veggie and my best friend’s family are all vegan so we do a lot of stuff like veg based curries, tagines, Buddha bowls with options of Tofu or Salmon (my kids just won’t go for Tofu) & bean based Mexican stuff. Always good to add to our repertoire

I’m going to make a lasagne and an aubergine parmigiana today, we’ll eat one and stick the other in the freezer. The rest of the time I’ll probably stick with things that are quick and healthy but also comforting- rainbow salmon bowls, soups, stew with dumplings, various noodle dishes.
I’m making some foodie hampers so will probably be sick of cooking by Christmas 😆

I’m making a batch of homemade sausage rolls today. I freeze them raw. Then throughout December can take out and bake as needed.

Also several lots of hearty soup for freezer. Carrot and lentil, minestrone ( il add orzo on day), and leek and potato.

It means when we have something on, often overlapping normal meal time, we can come back later to a simple soup, cheese, breads, sausage rolls or similar.

Also bolognaise ragu sauce. I cooked 8 portions last weekend for freezer. Has lots of fine diced celery, onion, carrot and garlic in. So it’s pretty good for days everyone is feeling under weather with winter colds and you want something easy to take out and eat

There are some beautiful sounding recipes and meal ideas here, I missed the post when writing mine :) I wish I could eat more seafood stuff (I have shellfish/crustacean allergy - so can only eat normal fish).

Is hake a strong tasting fish? I don’t think I’ve tried it.

@Allthings , check out the plantbaes website - the lady has lots of beautiful vegan recipes. We love her meals here. :) cheap to make as well

@TicTac80 my recipe is not at all authentic, it's similar to the link below, except I use dried chipotle chilli flakes in place of the dried chillies and add on whole chilli blended down in the sauce. I also use beef stock instead of chicken. I have used the authentic ingredients once and it was incredible but DS prefers my alternative, slightly less spicy, version. I also toast everything up then leave in the slow cooker all day!

www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/meat-and-poultry/birria-tacos/