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Susan Mulholland once candidly admitted that she “hated” Christmas day, a feeling arising from the overwhelming burden of organizing the entire festive programme.
From gifts and decorations to the inevitable culinary marathon, the responsibility fell squarely on her shoulders.
“When the kids were little, I didn’t really like Christmas. I didn’t feel like it was my day. I felt like it was everyone else’s day,” the 49-year-old explained.
She reflected on missed opportunities: “I look back now and think I missed some really important moments, where I would have loved to sit down to help build Lego, or whatever it was, but I felt tied to the kitchen.”
To meet the demands of a busy family life, Mulholland adopted batch cooking. After this he shared his practical methods through video. youtube And InstagramHer account The Batch Lady was set up. This innovative approach finally allowed the mother of two to reclaim her Christmas, freeing her from spending all day in the kitchen.
“I slowly started to change. I used to make sure my roast potatoes were cooked, but I always felt like there was so much I probably couldn’t do in advance. And then over the past few years, I’ve really managed to do it all in advance. Everything.
“If you have a Friday morning or Tuesday evening in November when you’re not doing anything, you might think, actually, I can get four Recipes “Done for Christmas.”
November is the perfect time to start, she says, and buying a lot of your Christmas food in November can help spread the cost.
“You can do all this in November, when you don’t have any other activities going on, like Christmas celebrations at school, your kids Tune Concerts and your work at night. December gets really busy for us.
So, leading up to the festive period isn’t just about preparing a Christmas Day meal, Mulholland also cooks one-pot meals to freeze and reheat during December.
Mulholland has two types of recipes — “Either you ‘pre-cook’ — which means you cook it and put it in the freezer, or ‘hold and cook’ which means you’re making it raw, and then you put it in the freezer,” she explains.
Here’s how to make it work for you this Christmas…
‘Cook in advance’: what to cook, freeze and reheat on which day
Mulholland says bread sauce and cranberry sauce, as well as side dishes like roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts, can be fully cooked and frozen in advance. “I make a beautiful shredded Brussels sprouts with pancetta, and you actually make it in advance, because it shreds, it lasts.”
Make homemade Yorkshire pudding in advance to freeze, or try Mulholland’s recipe for Mulled Wine Red Cabbage. While this method also works well for beginners, think about desserts like parsnip and apple soup, or panettone bread and butter pudding.
“The whole point of freezer cooking is that you use recipes that are frozen. Those recipes are made specifically to make sure they’ll be delicious.”
And freezing does not reduce the taste. ,People It would be surprising to know that in a completely top-end restaurant [chefs] Prepare in advance. A lot of this will come from the freezer and fridge that is already prepared. Many things actually taste better if you’ve cooked them beforehand.
‘Grab and cook’: freeze what to prepare in advance but cook the same day
While some parts of a Christmas treat can be completely prepared and frozen, their methods are not about doing the same for an entire meal. “We’re still cooking Christmas dinner. We’re just not making everything from scratch,” Mulholland explains.
“Preparing ahead really means that you’re preparing it, but not necessarily cooking it. You’re just preparing all the ingredients together,” she says, for example, mixing stuffing ingredients and forming them into balls before freezing without cooking, or wrapping bacon around sausages for pigs in blankets.
“In November, I’ll make herbie butter [to use under the turkey skin] And wrap it up. I’ll get the pack of streaky bacon and put it next to the herby butter. I will make my stuffing mixture. Then I’ll get my frozen turkey from the stores and put it next to it. So I’ve actually created this meal prep kit that when I bring it out, it’s defrosting, and I know everything is in there.
“Roast vegetables – you parboil them, cover them in oil, add your favorite spices on top, and then you freeze them immediately. [putting it in the freezer for two hours]You have partially cooked them, you didn’t cook [them] Cooked till the end and then again. It’s all about preparing everything, so it’s ready to come out and cook from frozen, but it’s being cooked on the day.
Do this for starters and nibbles, too, like pork and stilton sausage rolls, and cheese and chutney straws.
Cold starters, like chicken liver pate or mushroom and tarragon pate, also make easy freezer items.
Batch cook some extra ‘December dinners’
Make December even easier by preparing and freezing some nutritious meals that you can pull out of the freezer whenever life gets a little busy. Think pork, parsnip and mustard traybake, Cajun-spiced chicken, or coconut and butternut squash curry.
,[If you know] ‘I’ve got a fish pie in the freezer, and I’m going to put it in the oven tonight’ – this is the easiest thing ever, because you can make a fish pie in three minutes. But if you haven’t done that, your headspace is ‘I don’t know what I’ve got in the house, I don’t know who’s there or who wants to eat. I’ll stop at the shops, I’ll pick up whatever, or I’ll grab a takeaway.’
“It’s automatically going to cost you more money – and that’s a normal work day. So you take it tenfold in a busy December, and you’re racking up a lot of money and a lot of stress.”
The Batch Lady Saves Christmas by Susan Mulholland is published by Ebury Press, priced £25. Photography by Andrew Hayes-Watkins, available now