How do I keep the food warm at Christmas?

[Flocci]

I am not at all experienced at entertaining, but whenever we have people round, by the time everything is served up and people are sat down and helped themselves, then the food is cold. This happened last Christmas and on a handful of times since then when i have done dinner for family.

This Christmas there will be 16 of us again so the plan is that I put all the food out on the sideboard and everyone helps themselves and then sits at the table. We will be having turkey, sprouts, carrots, parsnips, stuffing, sausages wrapped in bacon, gravy, cumberland sauce. So what is the trick? PLEASE?

That is a lot of food for me to carry from the kitchen to the dining room and a lot of people to serve up before we all tuck in - how can I stop it all being cold again?

make sure the meat is ready half an hour before verything else then cover it well with foil - it won't get cold and needs to 'rest' anyway. Then get the veg on. Stuffing can also be taken out earlier and foiled, zap the gravy in the mocrowave. Drain off the veg last thing and put the lid back on, then put in warmed serving dishes.

Assuming you don't have anything for keeping warm specifically...

Heat up the dishes beforehand, and cover everything with foil. Make sure the gravy is piping hot.

If you get a chance to put anything in a warm oven, then do use it.

Hmmm thanks. So really, the key is, once everything is ready and about to go, put it all back in the oven to warm it up. So I need to have everything ready earlier than originally scheduled so i have time to let it heat up again. Thank you! Fingers crossed.

Heat up the plates until they are nuclear radioactive.

Get people to help you carry all the stuff from the kitchen, you don't have to do it all.

and make sure the dinner plates are also hot hot hot!!!

flocci, you are not heating it up again, you are not letting it get cold IYSWIM. Put your serving dishes in the oven or on the boiler to warm while you cook it, at the last minte put it inthe warmed dishes, cover with foil and leave in oven if you have space.
Put out spuds & meat first, then veg. Leave the gravy in the pan until everything else is out on the sideboard.

Or you could plate everyone's meal in the kitchen (and don't be offended if they leave anything).

Heating up 16 plates is not easy - use your kitchen sink and a kettle of water and pour over the plates, leave to let the plates hot up and boil the kettle again, and pour aver - then dry the plates they will at least be warm.

It is surprising the difference that a cold plate will cool down a dinner really quickly - heat up the plates and this is really all you should need to do.

I warm all my serving bowls by pouring boiling water in them. Even if you forget to boil the water for this, drain the veg into the serving bowl, so it gets heated by that water, then empty out the water and put the veg in that bowl. We drain the veg, then put back in the pan (which is warm), with a lid on, whilst we're doing the other veg. You can even leave the heat on underneath very low if it's just for a minute or so.

Remember to warm your gravy jug, and serve that as hot as poss so it warms up everything else too.

If you've got a grill above your oven, which you're not using, then put the plates in there to warm whilst the oven is on, they'll be piping hot. Make sure you've got placemats for your table though, or it will end up with burn marks!

If you're having carrot and swede which needs mashing, that benefits from being left on a low heat for a few minutes to get rid of some of the excess water, so do that first, then you can leave it whilst you do the other veg.

If you have a dishwasher, that might have a plates warming setting, or just put them in for a quick rinse, then leave the door shut to keep them warm.

Thanks for the tip about dishwasher / hot water and the sink - I think the oven and grill will be too crowded to fit plates too, so this is my answer - everything comes out of the dishwasher nuclear hot, so good idea.

www.amazon.co.uk/Hot-Ideas-Electric-Plate-Warmer/dp/B001VGZ0A2/ref=sr_1_8?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1480590227&sr=1-8&keywords=Plate+warmer

Brilliant, efficient and space saving. An "electric blanket" for the dinner plates.

DH and I have the tiniest kitchen, and we have to dance around each other to serve an ordinary meal, let alone a big roast. We have a Battle Plan now for large meals:

• we have assembled a large range of trivets and pretty serving spoons, which we put on the table
• We cook in dishes that can be carried straight to table, or decant from oven trays into similar. The warmth of the food clustered together means it stays hot for longer. And people can then help themselves to what they want. (We deliberately overcook).
• we make full use of all electrical appliances to create additional space e.g. Instant Pot and my friend's Remoska. Since these only require a plug, we can use them to cook in other rooms. Braised cabbage is brilliant in a slow cooker.
• the things we do have to serve, for whatever reason, we do in a rhythm where we both spoon stuff on in sequence. It saves amazing amounts of time.

www.partycity.com/product/chafing+dishes+aluminum+pans.do

Do disposable chafing dishes exist in the UK? I use them for any big gathering (re-use them too). So I warm up the chafing dishes about 20 mins before, keep the food piping hot until ready to go then decant into chafing dishes. Keeps the food hot for second helpings too.

I have actual chafing dishes too (am a bit obsessed with food being hot) but the disposable ones are easier to use.

We cook the turkey then wrap it in foil before a few old towels and finally a quilt

then we cook everything else. By the time thats done the turkey is still lovely warm and tasty.

Gravy gets done before (use Jamie Olivers recipe) and is heated up in slow cooker just plonk it in early that morning and it is ready and nice and warm when we need it (we have 2 slow cookers for this one we use the smaller one)

Hostess trolley? MiL gave us one and it is perfect only used at Christmas. If you have space, I bet you could find one second hand.

I heat my plates in the microwave.
You should be able to do 5 at a time.
2 minutes on full.