Christmas week meal plan

[mummydummyabc]

Yes, it is a bit early for this post..... but I have just booked my Christmas food shop delivery spot! Anything to avoid going around the shops with a 3 year old in tow near the big day. I have only thought about Christmas dinner itself. Have you any suggestions for a meal plan for Christmas week?

Following with interest! We've got family staying for several days, so need some ideas that aren't going to keep us stuck in the kitchen all Christmas. My contributions to the thread would be a C Eve lunch of homemade soup, jacket potatoes and home baked ham. C Eve night maybe fish pie or lasagne?

Morning OP! Thanks for starting this thread as I'm after ideas too! Every year I plan Christmas Day lunch to the smallest detail, buy lots of "snack " food and convince myself we'll have LOADS of yummy leftovers. In reality we end up with no actual other meals so I end up shopping the day after Boxing Day 😊
DH did make a risotto one year with Christmas dinner left overs so I may get him to do that.

I don’t plan. We’ve had same every year since the children were out of nursery. Now it’s shorter as they’re not home until 23/24 and not all are off all the time. Numbers vary but food doesn’t.

23. Rissotto with salmon followed by gelato. 24 Village Christmas meals - Gammon, Cumberland sauce, Jackets, salads then pavlova. 25 Roast Turkey, left over Gammon and all that goes with it, Christmas pudding, mince pies.
24. Boxing Day drinks so soup and sandwiches at lunchtime, then canapés with drinks (lots of substantial canapés) with a macaroni cheese warmed up later.
25. Meal out with my side of the family.

Boxing Day we always make a pie with leftovers - chop up turkey, sausages, stuffing, potatoes, veg etc. Mix in a white sauce, top with shop bought puff pastry. Best meal of the season. Cook extra potatoes/veg etc for the purpose!

Hot pork baguettes - I know pulled pork is all the rage but simple roast pork with apple sauce and stuffing served with coleslaw is fab.

For me part of the pleasure of food at Christmas is having the time to make simple meals a bit more special. So for example instead of a hastily made sandwich for lunch, tuna melts or Hawaiian toast.

Also having things we wouldn't normally have to try to be healthy e.g. pate, pork pies, crisps, cake

Christmas Eve morning- normal porridge 🥣 breakfast. Followed by homemade soup and toasties for lunch. We then go out to the cinema or Christmas markets and have hot chocolates and mulled wines galore. Evening meal is usually homemade salmon en croute (mackerel in cheese and spinach sauce for DH as he dislikes salmon)

Christmas morning- poached eggs and toast with black pudding, beans, and bacon. Plenty of Buck’s Fizz.
Lunch beef wellington all the trimmings. We eat about 4 typically so no real evening meal, just cheese chutneys and pickles.

Boxing Day- bacon and sausage sarnies. Lunch will be help yourself to Camembert, crusty bread, salad, ham. Evening meal will be left overs from wellington.

27th soup and chocolates all day😆

28th family are visiting so we will go out for lunch. Probably end up skipping Eve meal and happy crackers and cheese again.

Some great ideas there, thank you all. I like the idea of the leftover pie, that sounds very yummy and am looking forward to trying that. The Christmas holidays is a great time to try a bit of home cooking. What is you4 traditional go to dish that you make every year. Mines homemade port and cranberry sauce and baked ham.

22nd- homemade Chinese- dumplings, chow mien , fried rice, sticky ribs etc. To celebrate the official first day of holidays 

23rd- vegetable and lentil cottage pie - it's the Sunday before Christmas so I want something that's not a roast but still Sunday dinner like.

24th- country veg soup , made with any lounging veg that was bought the week before and has wilted a bit- not the freshly delivered Christmas veg 

25- turkey, pigs in blankets, maple parsnips, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, roast potatoes, stuffing, glazed carrots and swede mash. Bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy.

26- leftover dinner toasted sandwiches- best with turkey, stuffing, sprouts, swede mash , gravy and cranberry. This is the most anticipated meal of the year.

Roasted ham with a winter slaw type salad for tea

27th http://www.hairybikers.com/recipes/view/cold-turkey-and-ham-pie-with-a-cranberry-topping this pie with turkey and ham leftovers

28th- vegetable curry with rice, dhal and naan

29th- turkey (the last of it) and spinach lasagne

A veggie curry after all the meat eating at Christmas sounds like a great idea. I think I will definitely add that to my meal plan,

we don't have lots of people visiting so Christmas eve is a buffet type meal just for the family, with champagne.
Christmas Day - breakfast is pastries, orange juice, coffee
Lunch - traditional Christmas lunch with leftovers later if anyone hungry
Boxing Day - no plan. usually leftovers or curry

then, back to normal meals.

Meal plan for Christmas:

Breakfast- cereal and toast with water or coffee
Lunch- Christmas lunch with all the trimmings
Dinner- a veggie curry and leftovers plus ice cream and fruit salad

23rd usual breakfast (porridge/fruit) and packed lunch at work. Dinner Jewelled rice ( it is quick and easy) with salmon for adults.

24th Christmas Eve breakfast pastries, lunch home made sausage rolls, salad. Dinner chicken tikka masala done in slow cooker

25th Christmas Day. Breakfast bacon rolls or bagels and bucks fizz. 2.30pm.Roast Turkey and all trimmings followed by Christmas pud. 7pm high tea for children 9pm Turkey baguettes, Christmas cake and wine for adults.

26th Boxing Day bacon rolls or cooked breakfast for those who want it, lunch 1pm soup, bread and salad . Dinner 7pm Buffet Gammon, turkey, Potato hash, salad, bread, pickles and trifle.

27th porridge, turkey soup, salad, bread for lunch. Gammon and turkey pie for dinner with veg.

28th Veggie curry

My Mum's christmas day breakfast was always a hot water crust pork pie (or cheese on toast for me as I loathe pork pie!!) with chutney. Both my sisters still do this. I'm not sure if it's a tradition from the area she was raised (Warwickshire) or just a "family" thing but it continues with everyone except me. That's the only guaranteed tradition that would have caused a riot if she'd deviated from that.

I tend to fly by the seat of my pants and just go with what I fancy each year, so don't have any particular food traditions. Some of yours sound very good though, so maybe I need to think about it. I don't even bother with a cake as there's just the two of us....

Sat 22nd- no idea yet!
Sun 23rd: out
Mon 24th: homemade sausage rolls, oven nibbles, cheese etc - drinks after Christingle

Tues 25th:
Breakfast- M&S pain au chocolat and berries
Lunch: Aldi brioche buns, roast pork with crackling, stuffing that goes with pork, applesauce
Tea: sandwiches- egg, smoked salmon
Brie tartlets
Scones, jam, clotted cream
Christmas cake with Wensleydale, mince pies, mini chocolate logs/ choc stollen bites

Wed 26th:
Gammon in ginger ale, roast potatoes, sprouts and carrots

Thurs 27th:
Bubble and squeak with leftover gammon

Fri 28th- chicken and leek pie with any leftover gammon/ pork
Sat 29th- no idea!
Sun 30th -out
Mon 31st - NYE at friends - Take pudding
Tues 1st- takeaway!

Christmas Eve we do a buffet of sausage rolls crisps dips etc
Usual Christmas Day
Boxing Day leftover turkey sandwiches in homemade bread

I like the look of left over pie

My friend does a mean Christmas dinner pizza - yum don't knock it til you've tried it

Christmas dinner pizza! Wow you would have to have the stomach of an ox to eat that! It's always interesting to hear what people do with the leftovers as there are only so many times you can make turkey curry! Nice to change things up.

If you don't mind me asking, are there slots open for booking groceries?

Asda, Tesco and Sainburys are what's available to me so very interested.

Great ideas re food plans, I need to come back to this as I have a friend who is vegan staying this year to keep things interesting and I am a big meat eater. I have other family coming a few days later for a visit or might take off and go to them who knows.

Lovely ideas - going to keep an eye on this.
CherryPavlova great idea to follow same format each year. Inspired!

I would've s said the same til I tasted it!

It's a thin layer of a bit of everything no heaped high!!

make things earlier and freeze.or cook earlier in the day and leave to stand for the evenings.i like getting up and cooking a lasagne or pie and having it ready on the size to go in the oven in the evening.so the whole day is free to be out and bout and there is a meal for anyone coming or just us.
get yourself a crate now and starting putting things like crackers.xmas pudding.carton of custard.biscuits.chocs etc in it.earlier on those snackie foods are in the offers bit and they get more expensive towards the day.
get the pig in blanket now and freeze.
GET YOURSELF TO THE SHOPS NOW FOR THOSE LEFTOVER HALLOWEEN FUNSIZE CHOC ON OFFERfor hanging on the tree or ust having for xmas.
get an aldi wellington for the freezer.
buy a greens lemon mirangue pie mix bag for a great pudding.
make some crumble topping now put in freezer bag and freeze for super easy pudding in xmas week.
smurfy2015 we did this for xmas.it was loved by the vegan. and made double split in half then added some sautéed chorizo for the emat eater one!
www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/butternut-squash-recipes/baked-squash/
and this one we switched the quino before with pearl barley or giant couscous.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1940678/stuffed-butternut-squash-with-quinoa

this is a gorgeous risotto folks.www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/13012/simple-squash-risotto

deff a breakie of croissant eggs and bacon smoked salmon with scrambled eggs at some point.
xmas eve will usually be a fish and chip supper depeding on which inlaws we go to.
leftovers in sandwhiches of course.
with lefotvr ham and turkey make chicken and ham in white sauce with tin of sweetcorn added.sounds simply but it delish.serve with rice.
stew and dumplings will be had at some point
bought in pizzas.
leftover croissant bread and butter pudding.

bubble and squeak

You can book Christmas slots for Ocado now, other supermarkets start from 30th November. So there is still time.

No Ocado here sadly.

Thanks for the baked squash recipe, Im going to have to check with her for sure as Squash although technically a fruit is eaten as a vegetable and she doesnt do vegetables at all and tries to avoid carbs. Its going to be great fun.

Going to steal the idea of the crate to gather goodies up in

Ours is set in stone too:

23rd fish pie
24th baked gammon, broad beans, parsley sauce, carrots, mince pies

25th, mass then smoked salmon triangles, champagne and presents, followed by turkey (small), stuffed duck and all trimmings, xmas pud and yule log.

26th, cold turkey, gammon, stuffing, roasties, salads, pickles, antipasti, cake, yule log (this is often for 10-12)

27th turkey and ham pie, mash, veg

28th - often by now tempted to roast MIL.