Home improvement

As everyone is well aware, Christmas should be a time of celebration, happiness and family bonding. 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. Lets take a look at some effective ways to reduce Xmas meal time stress.

Prepare Food Early. You’d be amazed at just how much of the food can be prepared well before the meal, without compromising on quality. Cooked vegetables wont go bad or dry out if you place them into cold water and reheat them before serving. Place into hot water again for a couple of minutes and there are as good as fresh. Most of the sauces will keep just fine if you make them in the morning and then just add some more water and heat up again quickly when you want to serve. 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.

Sort Table Early. 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. Doing it early means you dont have to panic setting it all up just before serving.

Self Serve. If you let people plate up themselves from dishes in the kitchen you save a lot of time and effort. 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. Its advisable to keep the wine glasses on the table however as trying to juggle food and drink never ends well.