Truth is, this Christmas lunch is probably already giving you sleepless nights, you probably already have nightmares about overcooking or undercooking your dishes. Planning the perfect family Christmas lunch can get stressful. The stress comes from wanting everything to run smoothly on the day while channeling your inner Gordan Ramsay.
Well, worry not, we’ve come to your rescue with a guide to making cooking your Christmas Dinner easy peasy:
Come up with a clear plan
Draw up a list of everything you are making for Christmas lunch/dinner.
Decide what time you want to have your Christmas lunch/dinner and what needs to be done for each dish that you will be making. Then work accordingly and pace yourself to ensure everything will be cooked by then.
Have a practice run
Once you have outlined your plan, have a practice run. This is important for those dishes you will be trying out for the first time.
A practice dinner will also help you test out your time plan to make sure it’s doable and it will make you feel a whole lot less stressed about the big day!
Ask for help
You do not have to do this all by yourself. Enlist help.
Your family and guest may not get their hands dirty with the actual cooking but you can always rope them in to do all the easy bits like serving drinks, chopping of veggies or even laying and preparing the table
Keep it simple
You do not really need to prepare all the different kinds of meat or 15 different kinds of salads, and 6 different kinds of desserts. We tend to go overboard with Christmas cooking and it is unnecessary. Simplify, simplify and simplify.
Cook for the number of people who are actually coming.
Think carefully about the number of people you will be catering to and how much they will eat. No need for cooking for 18 people when only 10 will be at the lunch or dinner table.
