Xmas day cooking disasters

[Empress13]

We always have the illusion that a perfect dinner will be served on Xmas Day but the reality can be so different! On a light hearted note tell us your Xmas Day cooking disasters. I always remember the time my SIL’s oven gave up the ghost in the middle of roasting the Turkey she had to finish it in her sister’s oven !

I have loved several Agas and a couple of Rayburns. I slow cooked the turkey in the bottom oven a few times but am never allowed to forget the year I roasted parsnips in the top oven and put them in the bottom to keep warm.
Agas etc are so well sealed that no smell escapes and, whilst I was vaguely aware that dinner was missing something, being slightly in vino, I didn’t know what.
Found the cremated sticks that had been parsnips several days later….

I would be perfectly happy with no main meat and a plate of pigs in blankets with veg and gravy

We used to spend Christmas with my in-laws,so we contributed to the food. One year we agreed to bring the turkey. Collected from butcher and put in fridge. Finally got away( children were both under 10), got about halfway there and remembered the turkey! That place ever after was known as 'Turkey Turnround'!

Our oven fell out of the wall the first Christmas in our new (but old) house. Shoved it back in and carried on! Turkey gravy everywhere!

My mother's dog ate a whole tray (24!) RAW pigs in blankets. I was fuming!! 😅

Prepping a Beef Wellington on Xmas Eve seemed like a good idea at the time. I had preordered a super expensive fillet from the butchers but had to pop back to the shops to pick up a couple more ingredients I’d forgotten so left the seared beef on top of the stove to rest.

Returned home an hour later and to my horror noticed our 3 month old puppy who greeted me at the front door looked a little unwell and had a distended stomach.

Needless to say, had to go back out and replace the fillet of beef and dog had diarrhoea for the next three days.

Never had a real disaster with the cooking, but one year we were hosting my DM with her new partner. He was ok, but did like the sound of his own voice. They turned up around 12.00 with dinner set at 1.00. He was keen to let us know he had not come empty handed and had bought what he described as "some fizz". basically sparkling wine, but by the looks of it, the rather cheaper sweeter stuff. I politely noted we already had wine set out and cooling. He said oh you have to have fizz, it's Christmas! Just needs a but more chilling. Reluctantly we put it in the fridge. Dinner was coming together and we started to serve up and carve the turkey. As all of the family sat down he retrieved the bottle. Sat at the table and gave it a vigorous shake, then pulled the cork out. The cheap wine went all over the kids dinner and all over mine. DH screamed at him, what the hell did you think would happen? His answer was, I did not think it would come out that quick...(err you shook it up..). We did find some more food for everyone, but the kids were really upset and it wrecked Christmas dinner. He did not last long with mum.

It was an "almost disaster".

Last Xmas it was just going to be 5 of us at my place (me, my two kids, XH and XMIL). I was going to roast us a chicken (we all prefer the last of that over turkey) and we had some roast pork or beef too (along with all the usual trimmings). All very nice. Go to take the chicken out of fridge to roast it. It smells off. I then remembered that I had slow cooked a whole chicken and then froze it. Phew! Managed to defrost that quickly and then chuck in air fryer to crisp up. I think I will do the same with meat stuff (slow cook it, then freeze it) this year as it really saved so much faff!

Couldn't find my roasting tins on Christmas morning - husband said "Oh, I threw them away". Thanks for telling me softlad! I was cooking for 15. Had to call my daughter and borrow her's, which was tiny, and improvise with cake tins. Turned out nice though.

The first Christmas I spent with DH we went to visit his parents. DH’s mum was quite disabled with rheumatoid arthritis so his dad did all the cooking. He’d decided for some reason to give the oven a thorough clean just
before we arrived, which involved taking the door off the main oven. Unfortunately he couldn’t work out how to get it back on again and neither could we. Our only option was to cook the turkey in the top oven. It wouldn’t fit, so we had to hack the legs and wings off, and even then we only just managed to cram it in. It started to smoke really badly, presumably because it was touching the sides of the oven, so we had to open all the doors and windows to let the smoke out. Despite all this the turkey actually came out surprisingly edible.

One year I had so much Buck’s Fizz, I completely forgot about the roast potatoes- when the turkey was ready to come out of the oven they weren’t even parboiled. So instead of dinner at the usual 3 ish, we didn’t have it until around 5. But by then everyone was that much more ready for it, so we’ve had it at 5 or 6 ever since.
So not really a disaster after all, and the turkey did stay hot, with foil and a tea towel or two.

Admittedly, I can be quite generous when splashing the Port into the gravy… all good until the year I picked up a bottle of chocolate port, not realising (in my defence I don’t drink Port) 🤷🏻‍♀️ It wasn’t until we’d all poured gravy over our dinners that anyone noticed. God it was awful! Everything had a strong hint of chocolate and my family insist on reminding me of this event every year 🙄 To add insult to injury, I’d bought a chocolate dessert that year 🤣🤣🤣

I do a roast dinner every week and never have an issue but Christmas roast something always goes wrong 🤷🏻‍♀️ one year i burnt the stuffing balls- twice, thankfully i make them up and cook them Christmas eve (and warm up Christmas day) so was able to grab another box, another year the cat managed to get up at the ham and knock it on the floor n eat a fair chunk, last year I thought i had turned the hob on for the carrots but being a gas hob it must have gone out n didn’t realise, we had hard carrots 🤦🏻‍♀️ not really disastrous but does ruin the dinner a bit lol i wonder what will go wrong this year 🤔 haha xx

Not exactly a cooking disaster, but one year I had the most dreadful migraine on Christmas Day, and DH ended up cooking fish fingers and waffles for him and 3 DDs.

I stayed in bed till Boxing Day and then we had our Christmas Day!

Nobody remembers the Christmas dinners that run perfectly, but we all remember the times, with humour, when something went wrong!!! It gives us all something to laugh and talk about each year! As long as it’s nothing epic that really ruins the day, it all usually works out in the end! And yes, I always forget something! My mum found her peas in the microwave on Boxing Day once. None of us noticed they were missing from the table, but it caused her much angst! I always buy stuff we never usually eat, and it often doesn’t get eaten at Xmas either 🤦‍♀️. I’m calling a halt to this weird practice this year though.

Haha, my Dad did that, the first year we could afford a turkey. He was legless. There very nearly was a murder. That Xmas is etched on my memory 😀

We had a very large group round for dinner Got the turkey out of the oven and dropped it. The kitchen floor was covered in grease, the dog couldn’t believe its luck we were trying to keep the dog away but the turkey was too hot to pick up. It was absolute carnage. However it was me and my mum and she’s no longer here. This has made me laugh today thinking about it.

Love this one 😂😂

‘Mauled in the flowerbed…’ 😂😂😂

My mother in law liberally poured oil onto the very expensive beef surrounded by potatoes. A short time later we all smelt the most horrible fishy smell. She had mistakenly poured in cod liver oil, and not only that, it was the dog’s old cod liver oil. It was completely disgusting but we ate what we could. I won’t go into detail about the after effects!

We still, 20 years later, reminisce about the year of the goose. We were all adults and preDC at this time, my DParents were hosting. DF had a swanky recipe he wanted to try with it. Said it would take four hours. After five hours later (maybe about 2) we were all tipsy and there was no sign of DF so my I went to investigate. Came back concerned but having been shooed out of the kitchen. Another hour passes. DM goes to investigate and comes back flustered having been ejected from the kitchen. Half an hour later, DSis cracked. She can be quite forceful and, having found DDad in a bit of a state saying ‘but it still isn’t done, the recipe says it should be’, fairly firmly removed him from cheffing and took over. We ate, utterly sloshed, at about 8pm.

DGFIL and the mint flavoured icing on the Xmas cake was also splendid. Particularly when it became clear that he had not only decided that mint icing was a good plan, but also failed to remove the baking paper before icing the cake.

My mum decided to try goose one Xmas not taking into account it is very greasy. ideally i am told it should be on a rack or similar so grease will drain out but no mum put it straight in the tin. it was so greasy every time anyone went to take some off their plate it slid straight off!

No major disasters, but we were having a meal on St. Stephen's Day at my brother's house. DNephew had to work and was due to join us late afternoon/early evening. SIL plated up a dinner for him and put it to one side. My sister was cleaning up afterwards and (assuming it was a plate of leftovers) chucked it in the food recycling bin! Luckily there was still meat and veg. leftovers in the big serving dishes, so we were able to put together a dinner for him.

Well, there was the year the table collapsed, the turkey ended up on the floor, and I got stressed and subsequently DS got upset. So that was nice.

Last year my DH poured the extra sauce for the sticky toffee pudding down the sink, thinking it was left over gravy.