Christmas Dinner for all the Family

Ooo I love Christmas! Putting up the decorations, buying presents and wrapping them, then trying to find as many empty cupboards and drawers as possible to hide everything in! I love the planning, the family time and the excitement! I just love it!

I love the food, although my waistline doesn’t love it anywhere near as much I do, but they do say it’s the season to be jolly after all!

I also love cooking Christmas dinner! I think the thought of cooking Christmas dinner is something that a lot of people find daunting, and I guess if you’re cooking for a lot of people with different needs (vegan, gluten free etc), then it may well be a pretty stressful task, but there are lots of things you can do simplify it!

Here is my Christmas and boxing day shopping day list. Bearing in mind we’ll be cooking for five on Christmas day (three adults, two children aged four), and up to eight people on boxing day.

• Turkey Crown
• Turkey Gravy
• Pigs in blankets
• Stuffing
• Pre-packed sprouts
• Pre-packed red cabbage
• Frozen roast potatoes
• Cranberry sauce
• Pre-packed parnsips
• Pack of smoked salmon
• Seafood sauce
• Frozen Prawns
• Lemon
• Lettuce
• Crusty bread rolls
• After eight mints
• Christmas biscuit tin/Chocolates
• Homemade Christmas cake
• Mince pies
• Festive biscuits for the kids
• Gammon Ham
• Party food – mini pizzas, quiche, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chicken wings and skewers & more!
• Two bags of salad
• Salad dressing
• Coleslaw & potato salad
• Crisps
• Frozen desserts – Gateau perhaps or cheesecake

The items above in bold are for Christmas day, and the rest is for boxing day. We find that a turkey crown is more than enough to feed five which is why we buy a crown instead of a whole turkey. When we wake Christmas day, we’ll put the turkey crown in the oven and then pretty much relax until we’re ready to cook food.

The turkey gravy just needs to be warmed so this can be done last minute. I can’t be faffing around with making gravy from scratch on Christmas day!

The pigs in blankets don’t take very long in the oven, half an hour at most. I usually put the stuffing and roast potatoes in the oven together, but I do keep check on the stuffing as I don’t want it to burn!

Now, the reason I buy a lot of pre-packed veg is because it saves time. The last thing I want to do on Christmas day is spend most of it prepping food. The pre-packed sprouts, cabbage and parsnips are great time savers! Just pop them in the oven when you’re ready and you’re done!

I always have smoked salmon with lettuce and seafood sauce as a starter. On the day, all I need to do is take some smoked salmon from the packet, pop it on my plate with a squeeze of lemon, some lettuce and a dollop of seafood sauce. It’s ready in five minutes! My husband and his mum always have a prawn cocktail starter which is just as quick!

As you can see cooking our Christmas dinner really isn’t much hassle and it’s done pretty quick!

On boxing day, we’ll cook a ham and have lots of party food, along with salad and coleslaw, plus some yummy treats!

Anything that’s leftover from Christmas day can also be used on boxing day!