Xmas dinner: what lessons have you learned this year ...

[franch]

... especially about labour saving: what you can cut corners on, how much you can do in advance etc?

I'd say:

• buy all the sauces, stuffing, gravy, sausages and bacon thingies ready made - also M&S pudding (the connoisseur one) was fab.
• parboil potatoes in advance and freeze.
• prepare veg the day before.

I'm making a note of all this now - come Dec 09 I won't be able to remember any of it.

JoJos my whole family laughed at my intinery, it was an excel spreadsheet.

JoJOs we had 20 pigs in blankets for 3 people I had one! The rest went between dd and dp.

we had partridge, never had it before. It took 20 mins to roast the birds and cost £3 per bird and despite us thinking it wouldn't be enough -it was plenty. (dh , me 4yr old ds 1 and 13 months old -but eats like a horse -ds 2)

Cost £12 for them all and had left overs for the dogs. All done and dusted and much cheaper than previous years.

The only thing we would do differently next time would be to carve the meat off rather than serve as a whole bird as it was a little fiddly to get the meat off.

pmsl at vanessa's valuable tip.

I have learned that it is nigh-on impossible to cook a "traditional" Christmas meal with the average cooker. I need a double oven. I had turkey on top shelf (but that's half the oven), cauliflower and broccoli in cheese on next shelf, plus vegan nut roast for vegan guest, and stuffing and bacon wrapped cocktail sausages on bottom. In between, I had to fanny around with roast potatoes. There just wasn't enough oven space, particularly when you needed to do one lot of stuff at 220 degrees and another at 180 and have it all ready, all hot at the same time.

Have learned that it's probably better to nominate someone with a double oven to do Christmas dinner...

I thought of doing an itinery - did those of you who do them actually stick to them?

Yes I have a range of itineries on my computer for different roast dinners!

Ooh I've learned lots from you lot.

Twinset - what's the soaking about?

Didn't know you could get pre-peeled veg at tesco... Which ones do they do, virginboffin?

Yes we def need to do tons of sausages next year. Always do excess roasties.

1pm lunch is good - gets all the stress over and done with so you have max chilling time. Means getting up early tho or you miss all the present opening and fun.

Setting table the day before and laying out serving dishes etc v sensible jojos - you sound like my mum

I always write a timetable - you might have to tweak it a bit as you go but I'd go mental without it

But if you set table day before, where do you eat breakfast?

link to mumsnet thread with info on Nigellas turkey

Ah littlejinglebellas - I was thinking next year we might set out our trestle table in the living room with a nice tablecloth on it, leaving the kitchen table free for breakfast

Thanks twinset. Scuse my ignorance - when do you do this and what difference does it make?

I did it on the morning of Christmas Eve, made my turkey moist and flavoursome rather than dry and dull which it has been previously

I am going to make pretty much everything including roast potatoes in advance and freeze the lot. Then if there are vomiting children on Christmas Eve, it really doesn't matter so .

Have found a lovely veggie receipe for DH which was very easy so that will be repeated (caramalized onions and lentil wellington, takes much nicer than it sounds) with the filling made in advance and frozen like everything else.

Those pop up thermometers that Sainsburys have in their turkey are brilliant if you a track record of being rubbish at knowing if your turkey is cooked as I do.

This year's dinner went very well tbh - I think it's mostly because I did it by myself as I find people trying to help is actually more of a hindrance.

One lesson though is to make sure the oven and oil is hot enough.

teapot dd adores her dolls house, we have a big sit in window at the front of the house and it has pride of place there so she can sit and play with it and show it off.

I am liking the idea of freezing stuff in advance, but how do frozen roast potatoes turn out?

To also remember that everyone watches the same cookery programmes so to not try and buy star anise or maple syrup on Christmas Eve.

lol - I got the last jar of maple syrup in M&S on Christmas Eve!

Oh brilliant Twinset, I'm glad she likes it. Hope you all had a good day and are all well. We're not doing well here again, DD was sick Christmas Eve, luckily everyone well yesterday but DS threw up an hour or two ago. I can not believe that they are ill again, I thought there was nothing left to catch !

I have learned not to leave the brandy out ...

yes, I would also love to freeze par boiled pots in advance but do they really taste ok?

Oh no chocolate, I think we have finally got all the bugs out of our system.

Children do not like Xmas pudding till they are ten.
M & S sicilian ricotta cheesecake served with raspberries is much more delicious than any cheesecake I have ever made (laboriously).

LittleJingleBellas and donnie - frozen parboiled pots actually roast BETTER than freshly parboiled ones! I got the tip from Good Housekeeping mag

Where did you get all that from korma?