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Christmas dinner the cheats way

Tue, 15 Nov 2005

For 81 years Good Housekeeping, known as the housewives’ bible, gave advice on how to prepare Christmas meals. They would give time plans to start preparations up to one week in advance. However, they are now giving tips on how to cheat for such preparations. It is said that you can start preparing your meal at 10 am on Christmas day and have it ready to serve by 2 pm, with all the trimmings.

For some people this may seem like an impossible goal, but by using the cheat’s bible it’s easy. The first thing is to buy ready washed and prepared vegetables and ready made stuffing. For turkey lovers, buy an easy to carve turkey so avoiding any carving disasters. For people who do not have time or the inclination to do even this, the answer is to buy the meal in its entirety or call in caterers to do the work for you.

December’s issue of the magazine also gives suggestions on buying jars of sauces and by adding some sherry to ready made gravy or by adding orange zest to a jar of cranberry sauce, they can be passed off as your own.

Wise words from the magazine are "When time is short, cheat. It’s the biggest meal of the year, but it needn’t be the hardest."

Emma Marsden, cookery editor at the magazine added, "Our magazine has always reflected women and the lives they lead and we know a lot of women feel overwhelmed by what they have to do for Christmas.

"Even if they have jobs and finish work three days before Christmas, they still have to wrap presents, go to parties and do plenty of other things without worrying about lunch. Most women work and our cooking section reflects that."

She concluded "The magazine will also include a dyed-in-the-wool traditional recipe which requires a day’s worth of preparation."

Although many will be grateful for time saving tips, the older generation will still want to do things in a traditional way.

This may mark the end of an era, when the one meal that was served without cutting any corners. Who would have thought that a turkey dinner with all the trimmings could be cooked in four hours, for eight people including a vegetarian?

Ms Marsden said, "We have devised a way to cook Christmas dinner without spending days in preparation. It’s not going to be any less special just because it can be done in a day. Anything that was bought form a shop was blind tasted by the institute before it could be recommended."