I know I’m a bit early but…..
Christmas Dinner is a massive part of Christmas Day and it’s my favourite part of the whole day (apart from the presents obviously lol) but the thing I have a problem with is spending so much money on one meal. The most important thing to me about Christmas Dinner is all of the family sat round the table together having fun and you don’t need to spend much money to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, we do spend more than usual on our Christmas dinner but ultimately it’s just a Sunday dinner and you can only eat so much can’t you? We usually have a starter like Prawn cocktail or pate on toast followed by beef or chicken (we don’t do turkey) with yorkshire puddings, mash, roasties and a few different veggies followed by Baileys cake for pudding. Simples 🙂
However, for those of you who go for the whole shebang, I thought you might be interested to know that you can serve up Christmas dinner for just £2.63 per person which is pretty good you ask me. The researchers at the Good Housekeeping Institute say that if you shop around, you can make a full Christmas dinner for eight people for just £21.04 including Christmas cake, Christmas pud and the essential mince pies!
Apparently, the best place to buy your turkey is Lidl where the researchers found one down for £9.99 – the Maitre Special Frozen Turkey. It weighs between 3.8kg and 4.2kg so plenty for Christmas lunch…. and tea…. and Boxing day pie…. and the traditional turkey curry. You can also buy a 1kg bag of carrots for 49p from Lidl. Next, you need to move on to Asda where you can buy a 200g jar of cranberry sauce for only 68p. You can also buy some sweet suff here with two of 454g Christmas cake bars costing just £2.08, two packs of Smart Price mince pies costing just £1.26, two Smart Price Christmas puddings for £2.08 and a 150g tub of brandy butter for £1.18. Finally, if you’re still standing, pop over to Morrison’s where you can get a 2kg bag of King Edward potatoes for just £1 and two 500g bags of parsnips for £1.
There you have it, a frugal Christmas Dinner meal 😉
To me though, it wouldn’t be Christmas Dinner without yorkshire puds, stuffing, cauliflower cheese and sausages wrapped in bacon so I guess I’m not quite as frugal as I thought I was.
What about you, what are your Christmas Dinner essentials?
The thing with Christmas dinner is that apart from the Turkey, everything else can be grown, made or bought cheaply enough. But the Turkey costs a fortune!, especially if your concience is guiding you towards a free range one. My advice would be to go with Chicken (cheaper AND tastier!) or else use the recipe in Delia's Christmas book for Turkey roulade – Turkey steaks, bashed flat, filled with stuffing, wrapped in bacon and roasted as individual portions. But you don'tr get all those 'lovely' leftovers that way! Emma PS FAB website – I'm just off to register :o)
stumbled upon your site and really enjoying looking around. Hoping to have some more of my dad's dressing and my mom's chocolate cake for Xmas. We've just run out of the leftovers they sent home after Thanksgiving & I'm already craving more!
We just buy a turkey crown because no one but me will eat the legs, hubby can't abide the dark meat. He doesn't eat Christmas pud either! Sometimes we don't have room for pud anyway. I agree it is just like Sunday lunch and you can only eat so much. There is only the three of us on Christmas day so we don't go mad.
I was horrified to see that our local Tesco had frozen turkeys in recently and some were as much as £30 or more!!!!! Ridiculous. If they are that price I will be buying a chicken, or beef.
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Being a veggie means that I'm not tied into the turkey thing and change the menu every year. Last year I made Quorn fillets in a sweet pepper and porcini sauce, and the year before was a couscous/med vegetables/goat cheese Wellington thing. This year I'm planning individual chestnut and mushroom pies. But I always do the roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sprouts, gravy, cranberry sauce thing and we have a huge enormous trifle for afters. I make a cake that we have for tea with leftovers. Boxing day brekkie is always bubble & squeak and we have the puddings at lunchtime on that day.
Can't wait.
Oooh your festive menus sound lovely x
Wooo! Xmas dinner rocks my socks off, we always have plenty of turkey and pudding and the works. But living abroad means that the person who comes to visit us last from Britain has to bring at least 10 packs of Paxo in luggage.
Ha ha because you couldn't have Christmas without Paxo 😉
Yummy!!! Your menu just about sums up our menu!
Mmm I could just eat it now lol
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I have to say I was shocked last year which was my first year I had to buy a turkey. We've moved this year and now have family in the same town so I have stupidly volunteered us to do Christmas dinner. I will order my turkey but everything else will be homemade or the same as a normal sunday dinner, other than a nice pud and starter. I dont tend to notice Christmas cost on food though as I save all my nectar points over the year and use these, so far I have £85.00 worth, plus i get one thing each week in the 3 months leading up to Christmas like a jar of cranberry sauce or ingredients for pud or a pack of prawns and spread the cost.
I always say I'm going to save vouchers or savings stamps through the yeat but I'm never organised enough…. I think I'll start getting something each week now though – Great idea?
Mine are roast potatoes, parsnips (in parmesan) and carrots, with homemade stuffing, Christmas pud 🙂 We've started having a chicken as L eats next to nothing meat wise and there seems no point in doing a turkey for two.
Oooh parsnips in parmasen sound lovely x
My essentials are all home made, roast parsnips, stuffing and lashings of gravy! Christmas Pud and brady sauce too. We are very lucky in that we havent bought a turkey for the last 3 years as MadDad gets one free of a client of his.
Now that's one thing I cannot make – Gravy. Do you give lessons lol x