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Christmas dinner for under a fiver

For many, the turkey dinner on Christmas day is the highlight of their Christmas/year/life (delete as appropriate). Yet with the recession forcing food prices up and student loans long since spent, is there really a way to enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner without running out of money to buy the crackers?

Over the last four days I have, selflessly, tried four Christmas dinners, each for under £5, in order to find the best way to have your turkey and eat it too. On with the food!

 

DAY ONE:

Shop: LIDL

Price: £1.29

Product: Roast Turkey Platter for one

Cooking Time: 35 minutes

Brussel sprouts? Check. Pig in blanket? Check. Potatoes? Check. I’m impressed. For £1.29 you get a lot of food. LIDL have lived up to their reputation for good value – if quantity is all you’re after. However, if you care about your taste buds, then I recommend you steer clear of LIDL’s Christmassy offering. The meat fell apart in your mouth, and not in a good way. This was a salty, stodgy pile of goop. Imagine the orange fat that gathers when you put a roast chicken in the fridge and then mix that with water – that’s the gravy for you.

RATING: 2/5

 

DAY TWO:

Shop: Tesco

Price: £2.30

Product: Christmas Turkey & all the Trimmings Triple Sandwich

Cooking Time: n/a

This is the perfect Christmas dinner on a budget if you don’t like vegetables. Tesco – I salute you. Good, thick slices of turkey. Juicy sausage. Meat, more meat and bread. This sandwich is surprisingly delicious. Yes, it costs more than the LIDL platter and yes, it is cold, but it really is satisfying. Admittedly I can think of very few things more depressing than eating a day-old Tesco sandwich on Christmas day, but this is by far the tastiest thing that’s ever made me want to cry whilst thinking about it.

RATING: 3.5/5

 

DAY THREE:

Shop: Marks and Spencer

Price: £4.49

Product: Roast Turkey Meal for one

Cooking Time: 40 minutes

This is not just Christmas dinner. This is a Marks and Spencer Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, it seems that Spencer and Mark had an argument about how best to do a Christmas dinner and have come up with something that will please no one. They’ve provided us with bucket-loads of mediocre roast potatoes, a couple of below-par pigs in blankets, and passable turkey and stuffing; but for the princely sum of £4.49 I would expect at least a Brussel sprout or a parsnip. Really, M&S? You are the king of the ready meal, but this isn’t even worthy of a paper crown from one of your  crackers.

RATING: 2/5

 

DAY FOUR:

Shop: Various

Price: £2.63

Products: Turkey breast (£1.50)
Sainsbury’s basics gravy (£0.18)
Sage/Onion Stuffing (£0.40)
Loose carrots (£0.10)
Loose Brussel sprouts (£0.10)
Loose Parsnips (£0.15)
Loose potato (£0.20)

Cooking Time: Ages

After a bit of peeling and chopping, I bunged all the vegetables into a roasting tray with some olive oil, and shoved it in the oven. Forty minutes later, I griddled the turkey (because life is too short for roasting meat if you ask me). Stuffing and gravy done to packet instructions, and voila – you have one hell of a Christmas feast. Buying vegetables in small quantities worked out remarkably cheaply, although unfortunately I had to cut back on meat for the sake of my budget: no pigs in blankets for me. Other than that I had all the usual trimmings, and for a fraction of the price of the M&S one. Yes it took more effort, and yes I burnt the stupid brussel sprouts, but isn’t that what Christmas is all about? If you’re looking for a great, cheap Christmas dinner, then the best advice is to make it yourself.

Rating 5/5 (if I do say so myself.)

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