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 !

Made Beef bourguignon last Christmas Day. Boxing Day opened the fridge to punnets of mushrooms- I'd forgotten to add them....

I had the same experience with an aga in a holiday home. It was on day two that we found the control that turned it up to cooking speed!

In my family we have my mother,father,me and 3 brothers (this was before I had kids myself)

One year (back in 1994 ish) my mother got a real bargain turkey-really nice (and bloody massive) bird for pennies

This thing was a beast

All well and good,but my father and brothers are vegetarians

All we ate for about 2 weeks after Christmas was turkey-turkey casserole,turkey sandwiches,turkey with two veg,turkey with every sauce you can think of-turkey everything

By the new year,even next doors cat was sick of sodding turkey

I went right off turkey and haven't eaten it since

I insist on beef and choose the joint myself

Gave hubby the responsibility of making the annual Christmas yule log. Halfway through, he realised he'd royally mucked up as the consistency was like drying chocolate concrete. I got a bit huffy and told him to get out of the kitchen so I could take over. Started a brand new log from scratch - to my horror, halfway in, exact same result! Face palm 🙄 Turned out the recipe had a typo in how much cocoa to add. Had to make it a third bloody time. He got a big apology but he's never let me forget it, brings it up every bloody year 😆

The everlasting turkey made me laugh! One reason we have a modest chicken (and a gammon joint to make up some spare)!

Just married and hosted my parents for the first time. Had made a Christmas pudding and stored it away a few months before. Took it out on Christmas morning and it was covered in a thick layer of mould 😱. DM ever practical didn't panic, calmly cut the mould off, reheated it and no-one suspected and it tasted great 🤣

Agas always let you down high days and holidays the rest of the year they’re great!

This thread is so funny. I started off thinking that I didn't have too many stories to tell, but reading everyone else's disasters, I keep remembering.

We also don't forget one another's transgressions and don't mind reminding them.

Not a Christmas Day story, but a young adult evening meal. We were all new graduates in a swanky company - no parents, no children. We went to a friend's house (and she is still my dearest friend 26 years on). First thing, DH knocked over her Christmas tree. It had been decorated with stolen decorations, and funnily enough, some of these decorations are on her tree in her millionaire estate.

Cooking went fine. Then we had to wait for two of the menfolk to get back from a business trip - cue alcohol to fill the waiting time. When we all finally sat down to eat, the hostess managed to let her plate fall on her lap. She put all the food back on her plate, disappeared upstairs to get changed, came down and put her spoiled clothes in the washing machine. Then, as if nothing had happened we were all pulling crackers and eating a cold Christmas meal. Somehow, 30 minutes had vanished from the day.

We still bring this up at every opportunity, despite St Paul telling us that love does not keep records of wrongs.

It's just like cutting off mould from every surface of a cheese block 😆

I did the Jamie Oliver get-ahead gravy and it was so delicious, was delighted with myself. On the day, got a bit too stuck into the prosecco with my SIL. We had a pork joint that had stuffing in, took that out of the oven to rest and then decided to pour the beautiful gravy into the roasting tin to heat through. Only bits of the stuffing had stuck to the tin and burned, so the gravy immediately took on the flavour of old charcoal. I cried (prosecco) and DH made Bisto...

Not the actual Christmas dinner which my H is in charge of, but i make cranberry and orange muffins for Christmas morning breakfast. One year realised I had no self raising flour so I used plain with a good dose of bicarbonate of soda. Muffins looked great but were so salty they were inedible. We ate chocolate coins, jelly beans and panettone for breakfast that year.

My parents once told me about a work Christmas dinner they'd attended. All the laden plates had arrived at the table and someone opened a bottle of champagne. The cork shot out and hit an elaborate glass lampshade above and shattered glass landed in the dinner rendering it inedible. After that My father always opened champagne at the back door, firing the cork into the garden. I did the same for many years until I worked out (from watching waiters at weddings) that I can control the cork by placing a tea towel over the top of the bottle.

Some years ago we had a couple of friends round over Christmas (they stayed over for a few days as they lived a distance away). A lot of merriment was going on in the kitchen as dinner was being prepared .. which sounds lovely until you realise that I was ever so slightly tipsy and had taken my eye off the ball ... fast forward to dishing up the meal (about an hour later than planned due to the 'interference' of alcohol!) and we had all sat down round the table when I noticed .. horror of horrors ... there were no roast potatoes 😧. In my sense of panic, I suddenly announced that we'd not eat until I had stuffed the Aunt Bessie's into the oven to cook. Needless to say that was not going to happen - and we had more than enough other vegetables on the table so that, in the end, we wouldn't have had room on our plates for any potatoes.

I hasten to add that I've never been allowed to live this one down ... particularly as my heritage is Irish! 😅

Someone kindly gave me a wild goose one year and I spent many gory hours plucking and gutting it Xmas eve. We all had came down with COVID and none of us could taste the fucking thing.

How could you not notice the roast potatoes were missing!!!

For me it was the year where not only did the host cook the plastic bag of giblets in the turkey but the person carving served it to me with my turkey!

Oh and last year I got invited to a friend's for Xmas dinner cause my kids were at their Dads that year. When I arrived for dinner they were absolutely smashed and they hadn't started making dinner so I ended up making it 🤣

I was BF-ing our first baby and mum came to stay over Christmas -- I'd bought all the food and she said she'd make the Christmas dinner. She drank a ton of booze and was totally sloshed by 1pm.
I walked in to the kitchen (baby on hip) to see her staggering about with a saucepan of soggy mashed potatoes, ladling them out of the water into a cold baking tray full of oil.
So we had oily white slush instead of crispy roast potatoes.
Dinner was horrible and mum passed out on the sofa.

P.S. The first time I roasted a turkey I left the bag of giblets inside ... we still ate it. No harm done.

P.P.S The second time I roasted a turkey (free-range from the butcher) I put it in the roasting tin upside down in total ignorance. I didn't know it was wrong way up until my sister saw it half way through the cooking. She said 'Oh! Is that how you keep the breast meat moist?'. Phew. I still turned it right way up though LOL.

I had a night shift from Christmas Eve night to Christmas morning. The family were visiting as they invited themselves to my new house despite strong objections that being on nights would not make for a great host*. (Also, I was on a pittance but expected to put on a spread, 19 and single - but they were relentless)

I had planned everything down to the last detail; I knew I would have it covered, as everyone was not expected to arrive until late afternoon. The table looked lovely, the house was decorated to complement, and a hand-picked presents so it was all set to be a great day.

Except I sat down for a second....... and woke up to the oven on fire.

It's now a Christmas story that refuses to die, even though it was well over 30 years ago. Every bloody year, someone brings up the time I burned Christmas dinner. But leave out I was only 19, cooking my first ever Christmas spread, in fact the first time i had cooked for more than two people, just finished a month of nights, and dinner otherwise was absolutely fine.

It's always a sure-fire way to piss me right off.

*I no longer put up with this people pleaser/family drama any more

I have two, both from my mum (who was not a great cook). When I was a kid, we used to make a Christmas cake, and it was my job to ice it (royal icing) and add the obligatory plastic robin, holly etc.
I duly iced the cake the weekend before Christmas, and it was put in the fridge. Christmas eve, my mum noticed that the icing was pink and runny: she accused me of 'doing it wrong'. I took a look: she had put the chicken on a plate to defrost - on the shelf above, and as it thawed the pink water had run over the edge and dripped onto the cake. Needless to say we didn't eat it.

Another year she decided to buy a duck instead of a chicken (there were only 2 of us eating). She had heard of duck a l'orange, but didn't know a recipe. She improvised, and made a (very thick) cheese sauce with added orange juice. Luckily the duck was edible without the sauce, as the sauce was all kinds of wrong.

Cooking at someone else's house. Dropped the goose on a cream sofa. The whole goose.

Were you brought up in the Oxo family?

Haha
No,just a mother who sees a bargain and cant resist it
She really didnt think that one through

Glad I started this thread Loving these just goes to show what can happen behind the scenes!! We are like swans everything looks good floating on the surface but paddling furiously underneath 😁

Couple of years ago our new kitchen was installed about 5 months before Christmas including two full size cookers and I was delighted. We had 14 for Xmas day dinner and on evening of 23rd I decided to do a pyrolytic clean on the ovens so they would be nice and clean for Christmas day.
One oven cleaned no problem and the other didn't clean, but locked itself and we couldn't get it open. Eventually got it open but it no longer worked at all. Of course no one could come out to see it so I was cooking dinner for 14 with just the one oven. I was very stressed and dinner was not what I was hoping it would be.
Top tip - don't buy Miele ovens they are shite!

Our cook and my mother between them managed to drop the turkey as it was coming out of the oven and, lubricated by its own fat, it raced off down the tiled floor with one of the guests giving chase. When said bird was recaptured it was wiped down and served up; everyone tucked in and pretended nothing had happened.

I cook for 20, its always fun and chaotic and thankfully (touchs wood vigorously) we havent had any major disasters.

One year when setting all the table i focussed too much on the decor and forgot to set out the cuttlery which turned into pandemonium 😂 I was flinging cuttlery at people some were sitting with none and some ( my bloody dad) ended up with 3 forks. We couldnt catch up between the starters and mains and people were just washing their cuttlery at the sink before sitting down for their next course.

It was such a small detail but one ive learned from and now have double the amount i need at all times.

Turns out i turn into a total maniac with teatowels and on my first christmas day i hosted we ran out. Tthe generic teatowel is used as a oven glove, worktop and floor wiper, taking off pot lids, resting shit on, now i always have about 30 teatowels ready to use now as i couldnt do the day without them.