To-do list: Your countdown to Christmas

By TASTE, 5 December 2017

Follow these steps in the run-up to Monday, 25 December and you’ll pull this off without a hitch.

22 DECEMBER

  • Create your Christmas playlist (Avoid Boney M)
  • Buy cut flowers so that they have time to open
  • Make stuffing and freeze (can be made a week in advance)

Try: Buttery roast turkey with mushroom-and-sausage stuffing and roast plums.

23 DECEMBER

  • Shop for all your ingredients, except the salad items
  • Make festive biscuits and store in an airtight container
  • Stock up on ice and make edible flower-and-fruit ice or frozen coolers

Try: Shortbread biscuits with lime icing.

24 DECEMBER

  • Buy all the salad ingredients
  • Make decorations: spray eucalyptus leaves, fynbos and pine cones gold or silver to arrange on the table
  • Polish the glasses and set the table
  • Make desserts that need setting or chilling time
  • Make the components of your cakes, especially layered cakes. Wrap all the components in clingwrap to assemble on Christmas morning

Try: Meringue cake with cream cheese icing and caramel cornflake crown

25 DECEMBER

Early morning

  • Make the dressings for salads
  • Make the starter (assemble just before serving)
  • Make all the sides (assemble just before serving)
  • Make the potatoes and heat in the oven just before serving (If you are making roast potatoes, parboil and freeze a week ahead)

Try: Hasselback potatoes.

2 hours before lunch

  • Place the meat in the oven (allow for 30 minutes’ resting)
  • Assemble all sides
  • Prepare all the salads
  • Assemble cakes

Try: Naartjie-glazed gammon with blueberries and star anise

26 DECEMBER

And now for the leftovers...

Find our leftovers recipe collection here.

DISCOVER MORE FESTIVE FEASTING IDEAS HERE.

TASTE

Article by TASTE

The TASTE team is a happy bunch of keen cooks and writers, always on the look out for the next food trend or the next piece of cake.
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