Are you in the middle of finalising your Christmas Menu, why not try to organise your Christmas feast using seasonal fruits and vegetables?  

This year I’m encouraging you to try a few strategies to make the lead up that bit easier, here are my tips:

• Menu plan around seasonal produce
• Get the family involved in cooking
• Do some preparation ahead of time
• Look at how you can use all your equipment (e.g. oven, slow cooker and BBQ) to share the load on the day.

What’s in Season?

If your Christmas Day menu is like most traditional Christmas menus, they tend to be ALL about the meat:  seafood, ham, turkey, chicken, lamb and beef!

Instead of focusing only on the meat – work out how you can incorporate seasonal produce as the hero?

At this time of year in the southern hemisphere the main fruits and vegetables in season are fabulous and are great to include in your Christmas Day Celebrations. Below is a list to help you plan:

Vegetables

Asparagus, capsicum, celery, cucumber, eggplants, green beans, Hass avocados, lettuce, peas, radish, snow peas, spring onions/green shallots, sugar snap peas, sweet corn and zucchini.

Fruit

Apricots, bananas, blackberries, blueberries, carambola/starfruit, cherries, grapes, honeydew melons, lemons, lychees, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, passionfruit, pineapples, rockmelon/cantaloupe, rambutan, raspberries, red papaya, strawberries, Valencia oranges, watermelon, yellow papaw.

Veggies in focus: What to do with your seasonal produce at Christmas

• Radish: add to a mixed green salad for a festive touch!
• French beans and cherry tomatoes: Sit green beans in hot water for 2 minutes and refresh in cold water.  Toss with chopped cherry/ grape tomatoes, sesame seeds, balsamic vinegar and olive oil and cracked pepper.
• Zucchini: Zucchini Slice or Zucchini fritters
• Asparagus: Preservative free prosciutto wrapped around asparagus spears; Asparagus quiche
• Sweet corn fritters: served with cream cheese/ ricotta and smoked salmon

Save time in the kitchen

Look for ways to cut down the amount of time you need to spend in the kitchen by including some “no cook” or BBQ options so that someone else does the cooking!

• Prawns
• Smoked salmon
• Sliced ham (naturally smoked, preservative free)
• Whole fish cooked on the BBQ
• Butterflied chicken

As you think about your menu work out when prep tasks will happen, when you’ll cook or can you get others to bring items?

This could be anything from making food or buying allergy safe items/drinks/through to buying plates, cutlery and glasses or table cloths!  Either way now is the time to make a list of all the items and ingredients you need.

Declutter your fridge, pantry and freezer

Don’t wait until you’ve bought food two days before Christmas only to discover you have no room to store the food anywhere!

Declutter your fridge, pantry and freezer sooner – rather than later!  To help you get started, visit the Meal Planning Your Way Website and grab the free guide.

I hope you have a Christmas that works for you – where you have the choice to sit down and enjoy yourself or go hide in the kitchen to avoid the family if that’s what you need to do!

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com