Christmas dinner disasters

[piebald]

Come on weve all had them-in fact my christmas feast always seems a little dull without them
My favourite was the year i cooked the turkey upside down and didnt read the rest of the recipe that said-"for the first 20 minutes" 3 and 1/2 hours later it looked as though a steamroller had gone over it! No ceremonial carving that year we had to hack it up in the kitchen and send it out like school dinners

When I was 19 my mother had enjoyed a few too many festive tipples on Christmas morning before tackling the dinner.

Culminating in her dropping the half-cooked turkey on the kitchen floor and slipping and falling in the resulting grease. The bird slid all the way across the floor and thudded into the kitchen door.

I went to work that night with 2 packets of spring onion crisps in my belly

I had a lucky escape when I set light to the Christmas pud a couple of years ago and it went up in a fire ball. A minute in the microwave is apparently too long to warm the vodka for flaming. My mum and dad heard the WHOOMPH! as it went up and turned round to see me looking like a startled rabbit with a flaming jug of vodka on the worktop. As the flame is almost invisible it looked eerily beautiful :)

It was delicious though and no eyebrows were lost in the incident :o

XMIL once came out with flaming oven gloves as well as the pud.

Every flipping year my mother is involved. She is a bit, how can I say this, controlling. She devises a menu that would feed an army, goes to Sainsburys three minutes before it closes on Christmas Eve and tears round frantically NEEDING Mexican cherries and nothing else will do. Christmas Day starts with her making a big breakfast from very early in the morning and lo betide you don't eat all of it or she wails that she has SLAVED over it for hours....

Snacks are served every ten minutes which is a good thing because the next eight hours, the kitchen is a no go zone (Gaza is more hospitable, I kid you not). She uses every pan and plate going to produce a huge lunch, served at around 6pm. If you try and ask how long it will be, you get a plate flung at your head and she screams before breaking down into sobs about how ungrateful we all are. She won't accept any help and when persuaded to, she watches over you and complains you're doing it wrong.

My brother (an excellent chef) and I have stepped in one year and gently relieved her of the mantle only to have her hovering over the hob most of the day begging to be allowed to peel potatoes. In short it is a pain in the backside.

Thankfully my parents had the courtesy to divorce so we only have to endure this once every two years. This year I have my dad and his family over and I shall cook, quietly and gracefully and accept all offers of help until dinner is served at 1pm and we can all go to sleep for the afternoon as normal people do.

WHOA seem to have hit a nerve there Queen of the pirates!
Sorry didnt mean to remind you of your difficult years--hope you enjoy a peaceful lunch this year!!

Very new house with Aga. Christmas dinner 3.5 hours later than planned. Family munched bravely through rare turkey and sprouts al dente... Luckily no casualties...

I'm sad I have no funny stories- these are great!

My first Christmas with DH, also my first time cooking anything more complicated than a ready meal.

Decided not to go traditional, but instead cook our favourite dinner. Steak, garlic mushrooms & mash for me and quorn sausage, cabbage & mash for DH. Melon for him to start & prawn cocktail for me.

DH's melon was hacked to bits but edible. I forgot to defrost my prawns so gad salad with Marie Rose sauce. On to dinner, didn't chop the potatoes small enough & didn't check they were cooked before straining & pouring milk & butter on so they were rock hard & impossible to mash. Burned the mushrooms so they were inedible. No colander, so the cabbage was wet on the plates - my lovely christmas dinner ended up being steak & cabbage in a green puddle! I had PND & cried!

Pudding was fine though

sorry piebald, I appear to have unburdened myself all over your thread. I do feel lighter somehow.....

Not exactly a Christmas Dinner Disaster ... But ...
Opened the Aga door on Boxing Day morning to heat some croissants , to find the roast parsnips still in there , looking a little overdone .

Not my dinner but my DBIL bought a frozen turkey from a man in the pub once, defrosted it and on Xmas day went to put in oven and it was totally rotten, absolutely stunk. He managed to find a corner shop that was open and they bought two chickens instead!

Doilooklikeatourist!

That cracked me up!

There was the year that my Mum didn't wear her glasses to do the Christmas grocery shopping. She picked up a 12.5 kg turkey instead of 12.5 lb AND didn't notice until Christmas morning.

The bastard thing was the size of an Alsatian and wouldn't fit in the rayburn. I came downstairs to find Mum still in her dressing gown, fag in her mouth, knee on the turkey sawing it in half with a bow saw. It didn't exactly look like the picture in Delia's Christmas but it tasted ok.

Thats fine Q of the P, I can imagine how frustrating your christmases must be

Ha ha ContinentalKat- my first year with Rayburn I didnt realise how hot it could get- I just remember my brother looking at the roasty tray and saying "I didnt know potatoes could do that" They were glowing red like hot coals

Nivet that is fucking hilarious

Doilooklikeatourist-i regularly find old burnt garlic bread in my oven

Is it just me that would still eat a turkey I'd dropped on the floor?

Have you seen how much the bastard things cost?

Did anyone try Nigellas brined turkey? The briny bit is fine but that maple syrup baste over the top--It was went as black as the potatoes! We spent xmas dinner making up headlines "Nigella ruined my christmas"

BrianButterfield-why not-round here we just call those bits extra seasoning

I once left the bag of giblets inside the turkey (I didn't know they were in there!), it smelt revolting half way cooking and only then did I notice. Although I think we still ate it!

Last year I managed to completely over cook the ver ver expensive Turkey my mum had talked about for weeks, totally organic etc etc.

never made a christmas dinner and at 35 years old I am not about to start now

Ooh partyFops I have done the giblet thing with chicken
I am insisting on buying the turkry myself this year so if i knacker it i have less guilt.

Oh gwan sausagesandwich-you know you want to -listen to our stories of what fun it is

Bloody Abel & Cole put two bags of giblets in their turkeys one year, and we only removed one of them. Tasted OK though.

DA, who is not a great cook, decided to show off to her DPILs one year and do homemade Giblet Gravy. For the record, it is vitally important that you not include the gall bladder if you do this .

DM thought she'd put the turkey out of the cat's reach one Christmas Eve - she was wrong.

DPs went to a party at their next door neighbours one Christmas Eve leaving us (aged 8 and 6) asleep at home. All the other guests were medics, and the punch got spiked with medicinal alcohol. DM came back to do the hourly check on us and passed out on the stairs. DF eventually realised she'd disappeared and went back to find her, and also fell asleep. This was an extremely lucky escape for both of them, because everyone else in the neighbourhood was very ill indeed until New Year. The hostess (who'd been staying sober) went off to Midnight Mass, and came back to discover that the male guests had decided that it would be a hilarious idea to eat her pot plant. Unfortunately one of them had an previously undiagnosed latex allergy...and it was a rubber plant. He survived (like I said, all medics) but he had a very very bad Christmas.

Not really a disaster but every year my mum cooks the sprouts and forgets to put them on the table. It's now a bizarre tradition that we have to cook some sprouts and not serve them