staffordjas
Well-Known Forumite
Stuffing - Glad you mentioned that @Glam . I might have forgot about the box of Paxo that I bought ages ago and has got buried in the cupboard.JUST REMEMBER MUMMYS AND DADDYS
Christmas Dinner....
I have concluded that the inevitable stress of Christmas dinner is created by adverts and supermarkets....
It's a Sunday dinner for loves sake. We do it quite happily 51 weeks of the year but can we the consumers be trusted to manage by ourselves on one day of the year, apparently not!
Here goes...
1. Turkey... It's a big fecking chicken that's all, 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes at 180 degrees - jobs a good un! Get yourselves a meat thermometer £3 off the Internet poke it in the offending bird if it says 75 degrees or over its cooked!
2. Stuffing - regardless of what Jamie Oliver says you do NOT need 2lbs of shoulder of pork, onions breadcrumbs,pine nuts and a shit load of fresh herbs to make stuffing.... What you need is Paxo and a kettle!! If you wanna liven it up squeeze 3 sausages out of their skins and mix that in with your Paxo before cooking.
3. Gravy - Jamie Oliver is copping for this one aswell....
Bisto Jamie.... All you need is Bisto!
4. Vegetables. Never mind faffing round shredding sprouts and frying them with bacon and chestnuts to make them more palatable, If you don't like them don't buy and cook the fecking things. If your family only eats frozen peas then that's good enough!
5. Roast potatoes. Yes I part boil mine then roast them in goose fat or whatever you want to use, but Aunt Bessie also does the same.
6. Trimmings,Christmas pudding Mincepies and the like, whatever shop you use or do what I do bake them yourself
7. Family. Children, Feed the little blighters first separately, if they only want turkey with tomato sauce fine leave em to it, it doesn't matter. Once they are fed bugger them off to play with their Christmas presents so that YOU can enjoy your dinner in Peace!
Adults. Anyone that can manage to get their sorry arse to your dinner table is also capable of helping to serve up/ sort the kids out/ clear the table /wash up /dry up etc.
And Finally.....
NO ONE, And I mean no one APART FROM THE COOK IS ALLOWED TO GET PISSED AND FALL ASLEEP BEFORE THE WASHING UP IS DONE!!!
Rant over
Gravy - Yes , definitely Bisto.
Roast Potatoes - Think I said in an earlier post I'd got frozen goose fat ones . Actually Aunt Bessies duck fat , but all tastes the same to me. Aunt Bessies yorkshires as well.
Veg - Only fresh veg I'm doing is mashed potatoes this time. Frozen garden Peas are a must on all my dinners. Carrots, sprouts, honey glazed parsnips also come out of the freezer . Normally make my own cheese sauce for the caulifower cheese , but got a tub of cheese sauce granules this time. Ditching the homemade (my mums recipe) onion sauce this year, always tastes lovely but too much mess and faffing about.
The few ingredients for homemade christmas cake that I've already bought in (at a time when I was in a rare baking mood) are staying in the cupboard. The £5 iced and decorated one on my Tesco order looks a lot better than my efforts would have turned out like.
Malt Loaf needs to be restocked today as I attacked it last night after a few ciders...
'7. Family. Children, Feed the little blighters first separately' ......substitute 'children' with 'hubby'.
(His last words setting off to work today "When are you cooking the turkey ? You can cook it today or tomorrow . I'd rather have it cold" . No bloody way !!! We're having a nice hot & juicy roast turkey ,that I've just picked up from the butchers and paid a fortune for, cooked on xmas morning )
Picked up my pre-ordered turkey from the butchers at 8am today. (They opened at 6am and already a massive queue) .
I'd watched him write it in the book weeks ago, 'small turkey appx 9lbs' , but went early today as everything normally goes wrong for me so wanted to make sure they actually had it there for me.
True to form mine was the one cocked up order (Them not me ) "Oh, we've got you down for one small turkey breast" . Their input error transferring from note pad to computer . Soon sorted as boss told him to find me one , but so glad I went in while they still had one to grab from round the back.
**** If the man I was talking to walking home, who kindly offered to carry my box for me and was amazed at the size of our xmas lunch for 3, is reading this. (I declined the offer as wasn't that heavy , but much appreciated) ........ It wasn't really such a massive bird as it appeared. It only filled 1/4 of the massive box .