Christmas Dinner isn’t a huge deal in our house to be honest and we definitely don’t spend a fortune on all of the trimmings or hours decorating our table. Here’s why….
First of all, we’re not fans of turkey or stuffing so we don’t bother with them anymore – this year we’re having slow cooker gammon and a lamb joint that my Dad has bought for us. I’ll put the gammon in the slow cooker very early on Christmas Day so it will be lovely by the time we have our Dinner and the lamb will just go in the oven although I’ve no idea what to do with it or how long to cook it for yet so I’ll be Googling that this week.
Homemade Yorkshire puddings are essential as we traditionally have them for a starter with gravy on like they did in the olden days when meat was scarce. The idea was that if you filled up on Yorkshires, you wouldn’t notice the small portions of meat, although that’s not why we do it. It’s just something that we’ve always done and it saves on an expensive starter which is a bonus!
Veg wise we usually have carrots, brocolli, roasted parsnips and cauliflower along with roast potatoes and mash which isn’t too bad as the potatoes and the parsnips will be cooked around the meat and the brocolli and cauliflower are cooked in the same pan. The carrots don’t take long at all and the mash *may* possibly be the pre-prepared kind with some extra touches from me to make it more homemade. 😉
Honestly, we’d much rather be spending time with the kids on Christmas Day rather than being in the kitchen cooking the Dinner and then cleaning up after it so we try to be as smart as we can with what we do. The pre-prepared mash saves time on a day I’d rather not be in the kitchen so although I know it’s not as nice as mine, I know that everyone enjoys it when I add my secret ingredients (OK, just butter and cream) to it so I’m happy to serve it as a one-off. I’d also be tempted to buy Aunt Bessies Yorkshires if my dad wasn’t coming for Dinner!
We also use disposable baking trays for cooking and my husband has even joked (hopefully) that he thinks some lovely festive paper plates and cups are in order to cut down on the clean up afterwards. We won’t go that far but I can see the benefits!
Do you go all out for Christmas Dinner?
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December 23, 2016 at 10:07 am[…] I won’t go into detail about our Christmas Dinner today (read about it here on Meal Planning Made Easy) but I did want to share with you that we’ve decided not to buy a fancy pudding or cake as […]