What is your top tip for Christmas dinner?

[tealandteal]

Mine is I buy a boned, rolled and stuffed turkey. The white and dark mean is in separate rolls and it takes an hour to cook. Fits in the oven easily with room for all the other stuff. Anyone else got top tips to make life easier?

M&S

Just relax and remember its just a roast dinner. And it’s ok to use Auntie Bessies.

Write a list of all the dinner components with timings. Then when you’ve had a couple of glasses of something, dinner doesn’t get ruined because you forgot to put in the stuffing or whatever.

Cook your turkey the night before. It massively takes the pressure off you and frees up the oven for everything else.

Cook all veg the day before but in foil trays with butter and just pop in the oven to heat up. Also make gravy ahead and prepare as much as possible the day before.

Prepare as much stuff as possible in advance. I like home prepared for most things but I'll do a lot in the week beforehand and freeze it all.

On the day I mostly just have to remember to get my timings right for everything going in and out of the oven whilst I drink bucks fizz.

Nearly all the veg can be prepped/boiled, even months beforehand, and frozen.

www.gather-be.com/post/prepare-ahead-vegetable-platter

Do all your prep the day before. Then it is literally just the just cooking on the day.

Chicken is better than turkey.
Pigs in blankets are the best meat.
Prioritise getting the roast potatoes right.
Don't overcook the sprouts - five minutes boiling is enough!

Make sure you've got bread in for boxing day sandwiches 😁

Make bread sauce!!

Don't forget that all the supermarkets sell cheap veg near Christmas- 5p carrots, cabbage, potatoes etc, so don't buy it all at full price like I did last year!

Let someone else do the cooking?? 😁 This year I'm entrusting the Christmas dinner to my sons.
I've splurged on the entire meal from cook.... fingers crossed! 🍀 🤞

Get my adult son to take charge (he's training to be a chef, the bar is HIGH!), have his younger bro as kitchen bitch while I sit in the lounge with a glass of Port.

Jinx @shellyleppard !

@ItalianoSl enjoy ❤️💐 I will be nervously hovering lol

I like to cook it all fresh on the day and do the full works so I militantly prep. Working backwards from when we want to sit down and eat, I have an excel table of what needs to go into the oven and when it needs to come out, what temp and what oven shelf it will take. I make sure it all works in terms of shelf space and oven temp and mentally allocate each dish to a baking tray so I know I have enough. I also prep all the table linen and plates, cutlery etc for both breakfast and christmas dinner so I know it's al there so I don't need to start going through the linen cupboard and ironing at the last minute. I started cooking christmas dinner at about 12 and I'm 40 now so this is the result of lots of mistakes and stressful meals.

There seem to be a scale of people when it comes to xmas meal. Generally...

1.its just roast dinner, we'll just put together a meal as normal.

2 it's a fancy roast dinner - we'll add stuffing, roast veg, pigs in blankets and a jar of goopy sauce.

3 push the boat out , have to have homemade bread sauce to great grandmama's secret recipe or it's just not Christmas

We come between 1 and 2. My ex's family came in at 3+++ So my tip is to make sure everyone is on the same page expectations wise!

Always make more than you need! It's a crappy Christmas over here if there aren't leftovers of absolutely everything to put in a Boxing day sandwich.

Don't unnecessarily ponce about with the vegetables.

And the ham

Kitchen bitch - love it! I'm borrowing that one 🤣🤣

Use disposable trays

Get your kids to do the cooking and washing up! My DD did it last year and my son is hosting this year (they are uni aged but my son has his own place). And it is just a roast dinner with a couple extra sides and a nicely decorated table.

Like @GintyMcGinty says, ultimately it's just a roast dinner, so if you know how to do that then it's all fine.

Put the music on and drink plenty of champagne while cooking. Also - don't cook alone. DH and I both cook, it is much more fun, and other family members join in or bring some of the dishes with them