Christmas Dinner

[madmax]

Ok
It is nearly December and time to start thinking /planning what we are going to be cooking for our Christmas dinners.
I am going to be cooking
Shoulder of Pork slow roasted on a bed of onions, carrots and apples surrounded by apple juice.
With roast potatoes and seasonal veg, apple sauce and gravy
Followed by
Steamed syrup pudding with custard, cream and ice cream.

So that's me sorted a nice easy meal that we can have when ever we are ready.
So what are you going to be having ??

 

[Capirossi]

Sounds lush!!

We haven't decided yet. We were going to do a curry but as we don't cook roasts I decided we should make the effort once a year!! The thing is, turkey is so bland. I would rather have beef! We do cook a joint of pork on xmas eve though, complete with tonnes of crackling and have hot pork and stuffing rolls

It's such a lot of effort/food/waste when there's just the two of you :banghead:

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[madmax]

I tend to put the pork in the oven at a very low temperature at around 7.00am when I get up with the dogs and then just leave it to do its own thing until we are about ready to eat when I whack up the temp as high as the oven will go which will make the crackling I also throw in the potatoes and wait.
I know what you mean about waste my DD will only have Christmas day off work and my DS may get boxing day off as well as it is all over and done with in this house in 24 hours and we are back to normal.
I use the left over pork in sweet and sour ,pork and apple casserole and in sandwiches .
I would do beef but it is just so expensive to get a good piece.(I am very fussy about where my meat comes from and how it has been reared)

 

[Milly]

Its only two of us or maybe three if my sister comes over but I always buy a biggish joint of beef from the local butcher and have a proper roast followed by christmas pud and cream and the beef we use up over the rest of the holidays and I can always pop some slices in the freezer for the following week.

 

[kitten_with_claws]

Haven't finally decided but I think we might go for a nice piece of beef this year, sirloin probably as it has the nicest flavour, accompanied by roasted vegetables & both roast & mashed spuds, the latter with leeks or something.
Undecided on pudding but something shockingly indulgent that will give me stomach cramps for a week afterwards I expect! lol

Boxing Day, everybody voted for the usual cheese & crackers selection, with a large choice of various pickles etc. That way we can all sit around & watch films or play on the xBox all day uninterrupted by cooking efforts! lol

 

[Disenchanted]

Does everyone but us hate traditional turkey and trimmings then?

 

[madmax]

No but it is to much if there are only 2 or 3 of you and you are straight back to work.
I would love to have 7 or 8 people round to eat the old fashioned Christmas dinner but it is not to be , so I will cook what the "kids" want and enjoy their company for the day.

 

[Frazzled]

Occasionally I try something different but nothing beats traditional turkey for me. I just love it! roasties and all the trimmings and sauces. I buy a small one, live on it for days and freeze Christmas dinners down to enjoy throughout January - yeah!

Can't have pud or mince pies etc but I am going to treat myself to a few chocolates.

I was rooting out some recipes today and found one I use to make for leftover Christmas pudding. It's really good, will post it.

 

[Disenchanted]

No but it is to much if there are only 2 or 3 of you and you are straight back to work.
I would love to have 7 or 8 people round to eat the old fashioned Christmas dinner but it is not to be , so I will cook what the "kids" want and enjoy their company for the day.

But think of all the lovely meals you can make with the leftovers - I think we enjoy them as much as the main event.

I tried one of those bird-within-a-bird-within-a-bird things last year (found it disappointing) and OH has only recently stopped moaning about the lack of turkey pie or curry!!

 

[Akimbo]

Doesn't matter how big a turkey I cook Christmas Day there's virtually nothing left by Boxing Day night! I live with a pair of vultures! There's only four of us and DD is vegetarian. We tend to have our dinner early about 1pm and then while the carcass cools down the boys pick at it whenever they pass it like a pair of scavengers! The only time it lasted beyond Boxing Day was when the only turkey I could get was 22lb and because the butcher had cocked up the order he boned and rolled it for me and it was fab! Took blummin ages to cook because it was a solid lump of meat.

If it's just the four of us I realised it's just easier to use frozen veg (they never noticed tbh) leaving me more time with the family than isolated in the kitchen. I'll happily peel and chop the rest of the year! The early lunch started because the kids would wake us up at 4m when they were little so I'd throw the bird in the oven. Sometime between believing in Santa and becoming teenagers we had a couple of years of them wanting a cooked breakfast when they woke up which got in my way in the kitchen, now they wake up about 11am and the threat of 4000 calorie lunch in a couple of hours means they'll make do with weetabix and a glass of bucks fizz. It was always awkward staying with the out-laws when the kids were little because they wanted their food at normal mealtimes (for them) they'd be awake at say 5am but lunch wasn't until about 3pm.

Jude xx

 

[mariek]

We have a home cooked ham christmas eve with pickles etc ,then beef,turkey with all the trimmings ,a tiny xmas pud for me the others like banana and rum custard for puddings as they dont like dried fruit.
The only time of the year hubby takes over the kitchen and cooks it all ..love it as his roasties are better than mine ..cough! but i dont let on.:happy:

 

[Disenchanted]

I regularly cooked 22lb-ers because there were 16 of us for many years - sadly, just 5 this year but I've still ordered a fairly large bird! Both legs will be eaten on the day - OH and tiny sis-in-law, who resembles a pre-historic creature gnawing on hers! - but we also look forward to cold meat, bubble & squeak and pickles on Boxing Day.

We never seem to start our Christmas cake til mid-January and OH has to eat it with a chunk of cheese - preferably strong Cheddar. Unheard of in our family but he thinks it's an Essex tradition.

 

[sublime]

Cashew nut roast, fan roast potatoes with rosemary, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, bread sauce. Christmas pud, brandy cream. Bendicks bitter mints and coffee.
Then I won't want to eat for at least three days afterwards.

Lovely husband will have some sort of chicken thing which he'll share with the dog and cat.

Last year he cooked a hen. He picked up the carving knife, plunged it in - and struck bone. With a few meagre scrapings of meat on his plate, he ate Christmas lunch complaining like merry hell about the skinny, bony bird he'd paid for, while composing stinking letters full of loathing to the butcher.

After lunch, he decided to give the scant leftovers from his chicken to the pets. He turned the bird over, to discover a ton of perfectly cooked, plump meat. Yep, he'd roasted the whole thing upside down. :happy:

This year, I'm gonna roast my cashew nuts upside down and get my own back ... oh, wait ...

 

[susie59]

It's always the traditional turkey and trimmings for our Christmas dinner - wouldn't be Christmas dinner if we had anything else! I have cooked the same thing since our first Christmas together (1983) with only the veg changing slightly!

When it was just the 2 of us I used to cook the biggest turkey I could fit in the oven, do MASSES of roasties and veg and we would freeze plate meals so we had 'instant' Christmas dinner for weeks, it was wonderful!! These days with two strapping sons (18 & 21) and Mother-in-law staying there is barely any beyond boxing day!

 

[janie]

I regularly cooked 22lb-ers because there were 16 of us for many years - sadly, just 5 this year but I've still ordered a fairly large bird! Both legs will be eaten on the day - OH and tiny sis-in-law, who resembles a pre-historic creature gnawing on hers! - but we also look forward to cold meat, bubble & squeak and pickles on Boxing Day.

We never seem to start our Christmas cake til mid-January and OH has to eat it with a chunk of cheese - preferably strong Cheddar. Unheard of in our family but he thinks it's an Essex tradition.

foreign to me too but i thought it was a northern thing?

 

[kitten_with_claws]

We never seem to start our Christmas cake til mid-January and OH has to eat it with a chunk of cheese - preferably strong Cheddar. Unheard of in our family but he thinks it's an Essex tradition.

foreign to me too but i thought it was a northern thing?

I'm from the SE & although I can't recall it personally, it does ring a vague bell from somewhere......?

OH is from the NE & again, he can't recall ever seeing the two eaten together, although he did say these things vary hugely from area to area, even from village to village!
He does recall Christmas cake being eaten spread with butter however?

:nod:

 

[Disenchanted]

He does recall Christmas cake being eaten spread with butter however?:nod:

I'd have such awful indigestion that I'd never be able to lie down ever again!!

Quizzed MiL about the cheese and cake thing on Christmas Day and she remembers it from her childhood - 90 odd years ago - in a tiny Essex village. Apparently there were arable farms in the area at the time but this sounds most likely in a dairy farming community to me - especially with butter too.