A Healthy Christmas Dinner

This week, Mr McGregor gives us some advice on how to enjoy a healthy Christmas dinner.

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, mainly because the family get together, but also because of the glutinous amount of food.

However, this year Mrs McGregor and I have decided to serve a healthy Christmas this year. Our children are not going to be too happy that the sweet supply will be low and the pudding variation will be condensed, but I believe it will still be a very merry Christmas without it. In the early months of autumn I harvested most of my yields, which resulted in a few wheelbarrows full of vegetables. To deal with my glut of veg I decided to freeze quite a lot of them, separating them into portions and placing them into freeze bags. I have stored and frozen away potatoes, carrots, squashes, onions and tomatoes.

I think that should be enough for Christmas Day. However, parsnips and sprouts are not on my 'home grown menu', so I may have to cheat and go down to the market to pick some up. You can’t have Christmas dinner without them, at least not in my book.

I'm not a big fan of the supermarkets as you can never be too sure what has been used to help them grow. Although I'm neither for nor against the use of chemicals, there are some that I would rather not use at all. This is why I grow my own, I know exactly what has been put into the soil for it to grow healthy yields and I rest my mind knowing that my carbon footprint has decreased. Now if that isn’t good for Mother Nature and the health of my family, I don’t know what is.

I think this year's healthy Christmas dinner (I'm sure Mrs McGregor will want to repeat this year) is going to be a great success. My family will be eating home grown food and lots of vegetables; they will most certainly be receiving their five-a-day.

For the traditional turkey, I love a crispy skin. So when I’m preparing the meal I will rib olive oil onto the skin and season. I have found this works wonders when serving a chicken roast, so I’m sure it will work well for the Christmas turkey.

Potatoes will be roasted and mashed and I may just sneak in some honey roasted veg as well. It may not be as healthy as the other two, but its Christmas. Mrs McGregor is not going to be too impressed, but if you like the idea of honey roasted vegetables, I strongly advice you give it a go, especially on sweet potatoes. Simple cover all your vegetables in honey, season and pop in the oven.

You may have noticed in my small list of vegetables that I have noted down tomatoes. These won’t be used for the Christmas dinner; instead they will accompany my hearty Christmas breakfast. Okay, a fried breakfast isn't a healthy option, but in the McGregor household we only eat two meals on Christmas so I believe you have to kick start the day with a filling meal.

There are healthier alternatives out there too; one squirt of a certain vegetable oil is only a couple of calories (Mrs McGregor’s health kick is starting to rub off on me).

So who else is planning a healthy Christmas dinner this year? It’s a fantastic way of using up the rest of your harvest and leaves your allotment as a blank canvas, ready for 2012.

Mr McGregor is a guest writer for Notcutts, who is offering a Christmas discount voucher that entitles you to £5 off when you spend £25. Simply type in this code at the checkout: Star2011.

For full details of the Notcutts range, log onto: www.notcutts.co.uk