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Christmas (Sorry To Swear)
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I am entertaining 5 Adults and 1 child xmas day, I live in a small bungalow with a galley kitchen, hardly any worktop to speak of, what with the microwave, kettle etc on there as well, so I have said I don't mind doing a buffet style lunch, I can prepare most of it a couple of days earlier, then on the actual day lay it all out on the table, wondering if you have any ideas apart from cold meats, pickles etc., for other picky bits for the table.
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My daughter and I did this for about 5-6 years as neither of us is a roast dinner fan. My daughter would eat just as long as I made stuffing!
Anyway, we always had charcuterie...salamis, Italian hams, pate, at least 3-4 cheeses, olives, possibly a pre-roasted turkey breast, homemade potato salad, marinated peppers and cherry tomatoes. Some pastry based bits from M and S ...cheesecake and trifle to finish. Breakfast was always creamy scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.
You can do loads in advance and then either make it oven ready (ie on disposable trays with cooking instructions thereon) or table ready (already on the plates, ready to go onto the table) and stick it in the freezer. I regularly do this when I am doing any sort of buffet.
Desserts are particularly easy to do and freeze such as a chocolate roulade or a lemon meringue roulade or a pavlova.
Last year I did a finger buffet on Boxing Day - a mixture of homemade and shop bought and I just took it out the freezer the night before or that morning and stuck it in the oven/or on the table.
We had
bourbon pork belly bites, goats cheese souffles, sausage rolls (traditional and turkey and cranberry), tempura prawns, cocktail blinis with home cured salmon, mini lamb samosas, brushetta, mini pigs in blankets on sticks, mini yorkies with beef and horseradish and probably other stuff I have forgotten and then "serve yourself" chocolate roulade or pavlova (OK, so the latter were more fork than finger, but who cares) and a massive cheese board with grapes, celery, biscuits and various chutneys.
Trick is - label everything well with instructions before you freeze it; square boxes stack well in a freezer, but vacuum packed stuff takes up less space; identify a serving dish for each item and label it beforehand; write out a precise timetable of what needs to be done when. And I also take the view that in doing this sort of thing EVERYTHING can cook at 180.
Fridge space can be an issue with this sort of thing since you don't want meat or fish hanging around in a warm room for too long, I use large lidded plastic boxes that I can stand outside (if it's very cold out there) or pack with cheap ice blocks.
We've often discussed doing that, Tilly. But my dad is very particular and really only likes food cooked by my mum, his daughters or his daughter-in-law (thankfully, we are all competent cooks). Plus it is quite expensive for 10.
I do keep threatening to clear off to somewhere hot for Christmas and drink sangria on the beach on Christmas Day!
The BBC Good Food website is often a good place to start. There are 104 recipe ideas here:
https:/
Also check out the party food that you can pre-order for Christmas at Morrisons. (It might save you from a lot of work!):
https:/my.morrisons.com/foodtoorder/browse/christmas/party-food-and-nibbles/
^^^ Grrr!
Let's try to make that link 'clickable':
https:/
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