Mike Van de Elzen: How to make Christmas easy

As we start to get closer to Christmas (less than 4 weeks away!) our focus starts to turn towards Christmas day brunch, lunch, BBQ or dinner meals and the food required for them.   Some of us think of it as just another meal and are confident in the kitchen, but for many it comes with a huge amount of challenges. Not only is it stressful  it can be the most you have to cater for a all year challenges like your Aunty Pam only has her lamb cooked well done, or you have new dietary requirements you are not used to.  All in all it can be a very stressful time and a time many of us simply dread. But I'm here to help! and don't worry even I get nervous when I cook for the family or large groups at Xmas, as its simply the day we all want to get it right.  So this week I want to change it up a bit and instead of bringing you a recipe I want to help you and give you some tips to plan for the big day! Write a menu and shopping list of ingredients. Choose one protein that suits all tastes for everyone, we don’t need ham, beef, lamb, fish, turkey, and chicken!  Become the head chef and take ownership try not to please everyone! I would always go for  one premium meat like a good slab of Green meadows scotch fillet or a side of house smoked salmon or even some great vegetable dishes. Rather than beef, ham, chicken, fish, sausages, turkey, prawns all done averagely.  Start shopping now before the Xmas crazy prices begin for example  asparagus can last for up to 4 weeks if you cut the bottoms off and store in the fridge in water. Spring lamb is really affordable right now and it’s all easy to freeze it. You can buy 5 punnets of strawberries for $5 at the moment, Again, freeze them, defrost and cook them with a touch of brown sugar as an amazing sauce over your pavlova Seafood is expensive! So maybe spread the day out with some salmon on rye with a lemon sour cream? Or dare I say it prawns! We don’t want to be to like out neighbours across the ditch ! But they are a more affordable option You can always ask the rest of the family to bring a plate! To Share the load Finally it doesn’t need to be all about the meat. Think, lentils, salads, roasted carrots, pumpkins, salad greens, eggs, native potatoes or even getting a bit of smoked salt from our farm shop to add a bit of chef to your yoghurt! Hope this helps and most of all I hope it allows us all to have a slightly less stressful Christmas day meal.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.