What are you prepping on Christmas Eve?

[Alicia870]

Here's my list so far:

-make cauliflower cheese and keep in fridge overnight

• wrap pigs in blankets
• par boil potatoes, put in roasting tray covered in oil and pop in fridge
• coat mushrooms in breadcrumbs for starter

Anything else people do Christmas Eve to save cooking time and space on the day?

MIL bringing stuffing and cauliflower cheese. Roasted squash in freezer to make the veggie main and veg gravy in freezer. Will parboil the potatoes and sprouts and peel carrots, parsnips etc.

Turkey legs & gravy
Chocolate parfait
Salmon mouse and Dill & cucumber gel
Par boil spuds, carrots & parsnips so they can be nice and dry for the oven
Trim the sprouts
Prep stuffing

Red cabbage, because it takes a lot of oven time. Other than that I'll do everything else on the day. We eat baked ham, cauliflower cheese and jacket potatoes on Christmas Eve anyway so that will all be 'done', I just make a massive batch of cauliflower and use the other half on Christmas Day.

Make the nutroast, prep and par boil potatoes, parsnips and carrots. We also set the dining room table.

Done the red cabbage
Will make the gravy today
Sticky toffee pudding today
Will lay the table today as we have a dining room
Xmas eve
Potatoes
Cauli cheese
Sticky toffee sauce

I will be:

Cooking my ham
Prepping the potatoes, carrots and parsnips for roasting
Making the custard and adding the jelly to the sponge for my trifle which will be finished on Christmas morning**
Making a lemon meringue roulade
Setting the table (well, the kids will do this!)

**I don't care who thinks you shouldn't have jelly or sponge or whatever in a trifle - we have madeira cake soaked in raspberry jelly, then (when set) a layer of custard and then a layer of vanilla whipped cream and a sprinkle of bashed up flake bar!!

Not much. Dh will prep the gammon. I will feed the trifle sponges with sherry. Dh likes to do the veg on Christmas morning.

Cooking the potato casseroles and the swede casserole and taking the ham out of the fridge when I go to bed so it will have warmed up enough to go in the oven when I get up. So tomorrow I'll just have to cook the ham and reheat the casseroles and plate up the cold foods.

Doing it all today as we celebrate tomorrow. Already done the casseroles.

I'll be cooking the ham, preparing the veg and par-boiling the potatoes

Cooking the ham
Prepping the veg
Making the trifle
Wrap the chipolatas

Only doing pudding, so a pavlova an NHS custards for tiramisu trifle

Parboil all veg ..leave potatoes on hob with a splash of milk. Carrots and parsnips in zip lock bags.
Set table and make sure all foil, trays, dishes are washed and ready.

If you keep and pat boil potatoes, parsnips and carrots how do you keep them overnight? Do they no lose all their goodness?

*Prep and par boil

Might peel n cross a few sprouts, that's it! My dh does the cooking bless him and I just help out a bit and then clean up.

@Twickerhun how would they lose their goodness? Where would it go?! Absolutely fine, no loss of flavour or anything just much quicker and less mess on the day.

Just make sure they're in an airtight container and they'll keep fine until roasting on Christmas Day

Peel and chop potatoes and carrots.
Make gravy.

Most of all I need to sit down and work out the timings and temperature of everything cos our starters go in the oven too.

Cant lay the table as
A) the 24th we have a nice meal too
B) we use the table for breakfast the next day....

Oh Hamsterwheel, that sounds like my kind of trifle. Sadly no one likes it but me so I never make any. I will be boiling a piece of ham and roasting beef for Christmas Day.

Make mince pies and meringue for pavlova
Prep swede, red cabbage and cauliflower cheese

Boil ham
Cook all sausages, stuffing etc.

Wrap all the above in foil to reheat in the oven while turkey is cooking (takes up far less room)

Peel and chop potatoes, parsnips and carrots.
Prep all other veg and put in pots in the fridge

Make bread sauce

Boil the pudding for a few hours.

Also peel and chop all veg!

There's always much more to do than I realise 😓

Prep veg
Peel potatoes
Make trifle
Do prawns

Cooking the ham, a.k.a. whacking it in the slow cooker in some stock until it disintegrates into pulled pork, or shredded ham, if you like.

That was my only plan until I saw someone post about stuffing, which is an excellent idea so I'm going to do that too.

I might peel and chop the carrots too.

I'll be up early cooking the turkey and a mustard gammon, making the stuffing and bread sauce, prepping all veg and putting into the steamer trays ready, making the gravy. Then on Christmas Day I can chuck stuff in the cooker, flick a few switches and spend the time with the family and kids and not in the kitchen.

Defrost turkey stock, breadcrumbs
Make stuffing
Peel and soak potatoes
Peel, chop and soak/put in airtight containers: carrots, brussels sprouts, parsnips, onion
Bake Santa cookies
Possibly brining the turkey
Possibly boiling turkey giblets for stock for gravy
Making my flower arrangement for dinner table

(I made my flavoured butters last night so they are already in the fridge)