Christmas Meals The Easy Way
Everyone knows that Christmas is the one time of the year where everyone can let their hair down, forgot their worries and enjoy themselves. That said, preparing a Christmas meal for the whole family is often none of these things, and is instead very stressful as the chef of the family will testify to. Having to make sure portions are correct, everything finishes cooking at exactly the same time, and keeping it all warm are just some of the challenges. Here are three tips then that you can use to help your Christmas meal go smoothly.
Prepare Food Early
Believe it or not, a great deal of the Christmas meal can be prepared earlier than day or even the day before. Cooked vegetables wont go bad or dry out if you place them into cold water and reheat them before serving. Add to hot water for 3 minutes and its ready to serve. All the sauces can be made early and just reheated with a bit of extra water when you need them. Unfortunately its very difficult to pre-cook the turkey as it tends to dry out and tastes better fresh, but you should now have time to cook this.
Get Table Sorted
This can be done at the very beginning of the day and saves a lot of hassle. You can lay all the place settings, cutlery and champagne flutes as long as you know how many people you are expecting. You can even place the crackers in position and add decorations such as poinsettias in glass vases.Making sure everything is in place and everyone has everything they need early on saves people complaining they haven't been given a fork or napkin later on.
Self Serve
One of the best tricks to a smooth Christmas meal is allowing people to self serve from the Kitchen. This prevents the need to transfer serving dishes back on forth, means the table doesn't have to be bulging with all sorts of veg and meat trays and people can't take what they fancy. It’s advisable to keep the wine glasses on the table however as trying to juggle food and drink never ends well.
