It’s official. Jack Frost swiftly visited campus this morning, the grass was silver and it was cold enough to see foggy breath. We can finally start getting excited… Christmas is coming! Bea gives her advice on how to host an affordable and delicious Christmas dinner in your Uni house!
What better way to kick-start the month of advent than with some top tips on how to host the most festive, yet affordable and easy, Christmas dinner with your uni house mates? We want charades, we want pigs in blankets (or Linda McCartney in blankets!) and we want them now (but at a reasonable price)!
In terms of Christmas dinner, it is all about prep. Get it done in the morning so by the time you need to start getting things in the oven, you can do it with a glass of mulled wine in hand and Christmas hat on!
Quick Christmas Dinner Tips
Turkey! – Get it in, in the morning, and slow roast! Blend butter with loads of herbs, I’m talking rosemary, thyme, sage, anything you fancy, and get loads of it between the skin. You’ve gotta get your hands dirty with this one. Your bird needs looking after. Shove some oranges and lemons cut in half inside the turkey and cover the breast in streaky bacon. Cross two long sheets of foil across a deep roasting tin, top with onions, garlic, carrots, celery, with a load of herbs, and pour in a bottle of white wine. Place turkey on top of the veg and cover with the foil. Pop it in the oven at 130 and leave for 6 hours. Bish bash bosh.
“Do the chopping in the morning to save yourself some time.”
In terms of your veg, it’s no different to another roast! But I recommend doing the chopping in the morning to save yourself some time. For example, peel and half the potatoes – you can even parboil them – leave in the pan and finish off when you need to. Peel carrots, chop broccoli, and you know what, you can even do your cauliflower cheese already. Boil the cauliflower and get in a roasting tin, make the white sauce, shove it all on top, voila. All you need to do later is get it in the oven for 30 mins to brown.
“You can’t go wrong with Bisto gravy.”
To make things cheaper, easier, and less faffy, buy your pigs in blankets, your Yorkshire puds, your bread sauce and cranberry sauce all ready-made, it saves you a lot of time! Also: you can’t go wrong with Bisto gravy.
Decorations and Drinks
Of course, we need the mulled wine and we need the Christmas decs, and here is a fantastically easy and affordable way of doing it!
-Buy a bottle of red wine from Aldi, the BEST place for cheap yet delicious wine.
-Pop it in the saucepan with a cinnamon stick and orange segments, serve up when warmed through. How. Simple.
A lovely trick to make these even more special is to decorate your own wine glasses!
- Nip to Wilko’s, only a quid for 4 wine glasses. What a bargain.
- Grab your nail varnish kit from your room and get painting, the varnish sticks so well on the glass and the brushes are so easy to use, even the least artistic in the room (always me) will make something beautiful!
- A tip: Write names of all the guests on the wine glasses, they work excellently as name tags on the table, so you can get the seating plan sorted too!
“Decorate the table too, it is so simple and makes your meal that bit more special”
The best place for Christmas decor is by far Primark. So reasonable. So stunning. All you need are some fairy lights and tinsel and you’re done. You can decorate the table too, it is so simple and makes your meal that bit more special! Just a pack of snowman confetti sprinkled down the middle and you’re good to go.
Bea O’Kelly
Featured image courtesy of Scot2342 via Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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