Christmas dinner in a box?

It all started with D thinking that she'd forgo the traditional Christmas lunch with all the trimmings in favour of a bowl of hearty soup and a brisk walk on a cold beach. I'm not entirely sure that MC was as excited at the prospect as she was but I can appreciate D wanted an easy Christmas for once.

I'd recently come across the Banquet in a Box website where you can choose various gourmet meals that are pre-prepared and then blast frozen. These arrive packed in a snug jacket of insulation ready for transfer to your freezer. The meals can then be cooked from frozen at a convenient time.

I decided that it might be fun to order a special Christmas day meal for D and MC and order the same meal for M and me to share and have a virtual Christmas lunch together.

I picked the Boxing Day special as we didn't want turkey and all that and ordered instead a coquille of salmon and monkfish, followed by pleasingly plump beef Wellington, winter vegetables and loads of sautéed potatoes. There were also bundles of green beans and little banqueting rolls.

The coquille meant that I had some lovely mash on Christmas day; I'm pretty sure that's what I'd asked Father Christmas for! And I was able to 'enhance' the beef Wellington with a little Christmas tree-shaped sparkler.

Dessert was a raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake but as cheesecake isn't a huge favourite of mine (even when I make it myself) I swapped this with a chocolate bavarois. Though my swapping wasn't entirely successful as they still delivered the cheesecake!

The food was very tasty and the portions were very impressive. I do recall a voice from my past peering inconsolably into a meal-for-two ready meal box and asking if it was actually for two mice! In fact the portions were so impressive we were unable to finish it all. Though naturally I had the lion share of the vegetables!

We had our meal with our telephones on speakerphone in the centre of the impressively decorated respective tables (note especially the colour changing Christmas trees and the ‘best’ china!) M and I had all the crackers so we pulled everyone's, read the jokes and saved the gift for the lucky recipients!

I don't mind cooking a Christmas lunch at all and as I don't have a hungry family to feed every day so it still seems more of a novelty but I must admit that this was just so trouble free, with the merest smidgeon of washing up and really tasty food to boot. I’d really recommend it! A three flying forks for Banquet in a box (though it was slightly marred by my lack of promised chocolate dessert!)

I am planning to use the same company to send a couple of days of hearty meals for the new parents when L relinquishes her bump next month. It seems so much more practical than flowers, as lovely as flowers are I can appreciate that some trouble free meals without the hassle of remembering to go to the shop would be a particular boon for new parents.

Update – L’s bump couldn’t wait until his due date and the handsome AJ was born on December 27^th instead so too soon for me to organise a food parcel. Ah well, better luck next time!