Can you enjoy a Christmas feast for a family of four without breaking the budget? We tasked Food and Wine editor Karen Hardy with creating a three-course Christmas dinner for under $100.
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00:00 I'm here with the Canberra Times food and wine editor Karen Hardy. Karen, welcome.
00:04 Welcome, welcome to my kitchen. Fabulous, thank you for having us. My pleasure.
00:09 Now we set you a task this year, a bit of a challenge. Tell us a little bit about it.
00:13 Well, times are tough. Everybody's doing it extra specially hard at Christmas.
00:18 Cosy leaves is the word of the year, so we wondered if we could come up with a
00:22 cosy leaves Christmas and cook a beautiful Christmas feast for four
00:27 people for less than $100. And it looks like you did it. I did and I came in
00:32 with a few dollars to spare, so I'm pretty proud of what we've got here.
00:37 So we've met the challenge. Fabulous. So tell me what goes into planning a
00:44 Christmas feast and how did you make that fit within the budget? Alright, I
00:48 think there's a few things that a Christmas meal always has to
00:52 involve. It has to have seafood, a seafood starter, and prawns and oysters
00:57 are expensive this time of year, so I looked for something a little bit
01:01 different. You need a showpiece for the main course and then of course you need
01:06 you know to finish on a spectacular dessert. Fabulous, so we'll go through
01:12 the menu. We've got a couple of drinks here first up because it wouldn't be
01:15 Christmas without it. A bottle of vino. That's right, we've got a very
01:19 beautiful bottle of $4.99 rosé from Aldi. It's actually a very nice drop,
01:26 perfect with the lighter meats we've got today. And when I was a kid it was
01:31 always a treat to have a little bit of raspberry lemonade. I'm quite sure that
01:36 my parents didn't think so late in the afternoon, but a raspberry lemonade I
01:40 think it was a $1.20 a bottle from Woolies. Fabulous and on to appetizers.
01:45 You mentioned seafood, we've got a little bit of a spread here. Yes, so I found
01:49 these delicious lobster pastry puff things from Aldi. Lobster at Christmas
01:57 for under $100, perfect. And then I thought you can't go past some
02:02 prawns, so these little skewers from Coles were $1.25 each. And you
02:07 mentioned that we needed a showstopper. Tell us a little bit about our first
02:11 showstopper that we have. Our first showstopper is this delicious
02:16 turducken from Aldi. A lot of people might not have had a turducken, but for
02:20 me it's become the ultimate kind of Christmas protein. And for those initiated
02:25 in the turducken, what is a turducken? Well this turducken is a turkey
02:29 tenderloin wrapped in a duck breast, wrapped in a whole deboned chicken. So
02:34 you've got all three different kinds of meat wrapped together and it's been
02:37 stuffed with an apple and cranberry stuffing. Beautiful. And on the side what
02:41 have we got? On the side we have some beautiful duck fat potato potatoes that
02:48 have come from Aldi as well. They came from frozen, but at this time of the year
02:52 it was easy, you just cut open the bag and pop them in the oven. And we also
02:57 have a beautiful chicken and apple cranberry stuffed chicken breast as well
03:02 for something a little bit different if the turducken is a bit scary for some
03:06 people. And it's always good to have options. That's right and I always think
03:09 at this time of year it doesn't hurt to go a little bit overboard because
03:12 there's always room for leftovers on Boxing Day. Definitely and potentially my
03:17 favorite part of the meal. Tell me a little bit about this beautiful thing.
03:20 Well who doesn't love a trifle at Christmas time? You know but they're a
03:26 little bit labor-intensive. I've made a few trifles in my life, but I found this
03:30 beautiful Dolce de Leche caramel and chocolate ready-made trifle from Woolies
03:36 and it was only $27 and it's just layers of beautiful creamy goodness sprinkled
03:42 with chocolate. A perfect finish to Christmas lunch. And plenty of leftovers
03:46 for tomorrow. Plenty of leftovers for tomorrow. I think four people would actually
03:49 struggle to get through this, so I think we've done a pretty good job. And it only
03:55 took us two hours to cook. The turducken took about two hours and we managed to
03:59 cook everything else in and around that. So Christmas lunch for less than
04:04 $100 in under two hours. I think I've met the brief. Yeah definitely. And
04:08 there's a lot of pressure this time of year. Barring what we've seen here with
04:14 the meal, what are your other tips for taking the pressure off this Christmas?
04:17 I think you know it can Christmas can be fraught with a lot of emotional baggage,
04:21 but I think we've all just got to cut ourselves a little bit of slack and
04:24 relax a little bit and think about what the important things at Christmas time
04:28 are. And it's for me it's having people around the table for a nice meal, heading
04:33 outside for a game of street cricket, or just kicking back on the lounge and
04:38 watching Love Actually and whatever your favorite Christmas movies are. So I just
04:43 think we just need to take the pressure off ourselves. And if you've got lots of
04:47 people coming over, get everybody to bring a plate. I remember some of my best
04:52 childhood memories. One of my aunts would bring a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken
04:57 and so you know that was her contribution. So I think yeah delegate
05:02 tasks to people and just relax and be kind to yourself and to each other. And
05:07 for those who are wondering if KFC is traditional, in Japan it actually is the
05:11 traditional meal. So you're still ticking that box. Yeah I don't think my
05:15 auntie knew that at all, but she just turned up with this bucket of chicken
05:19 every time. Oh fabulous. Really well that's it from us from Karen's Kitchen.
05:24 Here's cheers on behalf of the Canberra Times. We wish you all a Merry Christmas
05:28 and a Happy Turducken.
05:32 you
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