How to Cook the Best Christmas Dinner

Christmas is the time of year where family and close friends get together to enjoy the magical day. Opening gifts, seeing your loved ones with smiles on their faces and most of all, making memories, Christmas really is a special time of year. But while we have all been packing and preparing Christmas gifts for our loved ones, another important part of Christmas to prepare for is the food, of course. We are cooking our Christmas dinner at home for the second year running, but by we, I mean my partner, as he loves cooking. 

Christmas dinner is all about the planning, to make sure that it is cooked perfectly and tastes delicious. It's important to make sure that you place your Christmas turkey order in plenty of time before the big day. We finally ordered ours the other week, and now we're just counting down the days for the big day. If you're doing the cooking this year, here are a few tips on how to create the best Christmas dinner:

My partner and I like to look online for Christmas food recipes to see what we can find to make our food even more delicious and different from the traditional Sunday dinner. Firstly, the important one to cook right is your turkey. If you're unsure what size turkey to buy, always ask your butcher or wherever you are buying from, and they can recommend a size for you. We always tend to go for a larger one as we like to keep some leftovers for the days after Christmas too. Though if there are less of you or you prefer just the breast meat, a Graig Farm Organic Turkey Crown

When you place your turkey in the tray, you can add your vegetables and potatoes around the turkey while it roasts. The vegetables will then taste extra delicious because of the meat juices. The breast meat can dry out pretty quickly, and one way to avoid that is to start roasting it with the breast-side down. I like to use stuffing in the turkey and smear it with butter to add extra flavour.

Now onto your gravy, for me personally, the gravy makes the dinner. You can make some delicious gravy using the leftover meat juices, this also means nothing goes to waste either. It can take roughly 5-10 minutes to make the perfect gravy, but it's worth it. 

Roast potatoes are another favourite of mine. I love the crispy outside and the soft fluffy inside. Our best roast potatoes are always made by boiling them until they're half cooked. After being boiled, rinse them and wait a while until they have dried out before then putting them onto a baking tray, with some garlic seasoning and a bit of butter, then let them roast until you're happy with them. As said above, you could also put a few in the tray with the turkey too for some extra taste.

Lastly, your vegetables. We always roast our parsnips, carrots and onions in the oven, the same ways as the roast potatoes - by adding some garlic seasoning and a little bit of butter. The extra vegetables we cook are the good ol' cabbage and extra carrots for mashing. We just boil them in a pan until they are soft and ready to eat. 

What's your favourite Christmas food?

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