Rex Features Your turkey should look a lot better than this with these helpful hints
Christmas lunch can be the most stressful meal of the year for many of us landed with the task of cooking it. Will you get the timings right? Will the turkey be undercooked or as dry as sandpaper? Will the sprouts be like bullets? Indeed, will anyone eat them in the first place? Will the family complain about being dished up the same old festive fare as last year? And then what on earth do you do with all those leftovers?
Well, fret ye not. It doesn't have to be like this. With a soupcon of strategic planning and a spoonful of creativity, you can have you most inspired Christmas ever.
We've rounded up 12 of the best foodie bloggers from far and wide to share their festive tips, ideas and advice. Ho-ho-yum!
• Let your kids take some of the strain when preparing your Christmas lunch! A big favourite in our house is making stuffing togther, using good quality sausage meat. For added fun, we divide the stuffing into small quantities, roll it into little sausages and wrap rashers of bacon around them. All very kid friendly. Equally fun to make together are sausage rolls for starters, using store bought puff pastry and sausage meat for ease of use. In our house, anything which involves squishing, rolling and cutting goes down well in the kitchen.
• You'll be looking for something to do with the turkey leftovers. How about frying up some onions and garlic, chucking in a little sherry, stirring in the turkey and then adding double cream for a delicious and flavoursome Boxing Day treat which can be served with pasta.
• Take your leftover meat and any leftover roasted vegetables, stirring a little white sauce into them and filling some savoury pancakes with the mix, before baking in the oven.
• If you've got lots of potatoes, sausages and bacon left, simply fry them up into a hash (adding some onion and garlic) and serve it with a fried or poached egg on top for a perfect Christmas brunch.
• Make your Christmas cookies in advance and freeze them in ice cream tubs. My mother-in-law always labelled these containers 'smoked fish' which meant no one touched them until Christmas time. These delicious and easy Canadian cornflour shortbread biscuits freeze well, and are easy to decorate with pretty Christmassy fruit and nuts.
• Want to shake things up a little at Christmas dinner? Why not make your roasties Indian style with the addition of a few spices and a sprinkling of fresh coriander? The roast potatoes go really well with turkey or chicken, and add a touch of the exotic to your Christmas table.
• Be organised and make a plan in advance. There are plenty of jobs that can be carried out prior to the big day to take the heat off. I have a check list on my blog that people can download if they wish.
• Placing the turkey in brine the night before cooking will ensure delicious moist meat, even if you happen to overcook the turkey. It also adds a beautiful subtle flavour to the meat.
• If you don't have time to make mince pies simply bake some frozen vol au vent cases and fill with mince meat. Top with brandy cream and dust with icing sugar for a quick and easy sweet treat.
• Lots of recipes tell you to wash and dry the turkey. Don't. You'll just splatter germs all round your sink and the oven temperature will kill them anyway.
• A well-wrapped turkey (in foil, then covered with a couple of tea towels) will keep hot for at least an hour so don't panic if your timings are a bit off.
• Don't bother steaming your Christmas pudding on the day. Do it the day before when you have more time. On Christmas day, just microwave it. Nobody will ever know.
• Have some home made short crust pastry ready waiting in the fridge so that you can make turkey pies with left over meat on Boxing Day. If you make enough pastry you can freeze some pies too.
• Use leftover roast vegetables and meat (not turkey) in a frittata for Boxing Day Brunch. You can use leftover meat for wraps, panini sandwiches, quesadillas risottos or pasta bakes.
• If you have leftover turkey, make a creamy savoury sauce, add some leeks and leftover vegetables and put it all in a pie or make a quick scone dough, cut circles out of it for a cobbler topping and you've got a posh casserole.
• Leftover Christmas pudding can be made into cake pops, mixed with ice cream or put into a trifle. Leftover pavlova makes a fab Eton Mess or crumble it into homemade ice cream.
• For really flavoursome and sweet carrots cut them in to thirds lengthways, throw into a foil tray, sprinkle with a glass of white wine, some thyme, sea salt, pepper, add a few dabs of butter, cover with foil and bake in the oven for one to one and a half hours depending on the quantity. This is a great way to cook carrots for large numbers and it is easy to keep them warm in a low oven if necessary.
• For the perfect crispy roast potatoes make sure you parboil the potatoes for around 10 minutes after boiling point to ensure a nice soft fluffy outside that will roughen up a bit when shaken around, use goose fat and make sure it is very hot before adding the potatoes, toss well to coat in the fat and don't overload the tray or they will just steam - if cooking for a large number use two trays.
www.greatcurryrecipes.net
• An excellent way to give leftover - or undercooked - turkey new life is to make a jalfrezi curry. Jalfrezi is one of the most popular curries at Indian restaurants. Traditionally it has always been a dish of leftovers.
• Don't just serve brussel sprouts as a Christmas dinner side dish. Make them a conversation starter by par-cooking them, cutting them in half and frying - blackening them - in hot olive oil and garlic. Serve splashed with balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Amazing!
• Make your own cranberry sauce. This may not sound like it will make your life easier, but if you make your own cranberry sauce (embarrassingly easy) no-one will realise that you've bought ready peeled potatoes and your onions are out of a tin.
• Make gravy from scratch using cornflour, water and gravy browning as a paste then top up with water you've cooked the veg in. Pour into the roasting dish that the bird's cooked in to scrape up all the goodies from the bottom of the tin. Sweeten with a dollop of redcurrant jelly and enrich with a glug of wine and plenty of black pepper.
• Make pasties using leftovers. Chop up the leftover meat, potatoes, veg and stuffing, add a pinch of your fave spice and then dollop into the middle of squares of puff pastry. Fold over, seal and brush with beaten egg and bake to make delicious pasties.
• Use up Christmas cake by making Christmas cake ice cream.
Crumble the fruit cake, pour over your favourite brandy, liqueur, orange juice (if wanting to make non alchoholic). Allow to steep for as long as you can. Soften a tube of vanilla (or any flavour really) ice cream, mix through 2 cups of fruit cake mixture and put back into ice cream tub or a mould. Serve with a sauce or custard.
• Try these delicious leftover Christmas pudding truffles. I use:
300g Dark Chocolate cocoa
300ml Double Cream and leftover Christmas pudding, soaked overnight in brandy
Put the cream in a small pan and heat on the hob. When the cream has just boiled take off heat and stir in the chocolate until it melts. Add the pudding.
• I'm not a big fan of candy cane because they're usually too big, and just pure sugar, so I crush them and add them as a topping to ice cream, with chopped dark chocolate or even to the top of cupcakes or these chocolate cakes.
Do you have any canny Christmas tips to share with our readers?