Family of 10 cook up festive feast with ALL the trimming for £4.83 a head

Roy Hann, a Nurse Practitioner, cooked up a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings including pigs in blankets and stuffing for just £48.34, working out at £4.83 per head.

The Hann family kept costs low by shopping with online healthy retailer musclefood.com, using its £59 Luxury Turkey Hamper and £1 gourmet trimmings to enjoy a bargain price Christmas lunch.

Roy explained that whilst he and wife Emma normally call on older children to bring parts of the annual festive meal to the house on Christmas Day, it wasn’t actually necessary this time.

Enlisting the help of three of their children who helped their Dad mash potatoes and make stuffing, Roy cooked up a festive feast for himself, Emma and eight of their brood in just three and a half hours.

Roy added some more potatoes to the hamper and whipped up some more gravy to keep his hungry children happy with their favourite parts of the meal.

Then he used the leftover turkey and vegetables to make a large ‘Boxing Day’ curry to feed the family after the festivities.

The musclefood hamper also included two heritage range rump steak which the couple enjoyed on a rare ‘date night’. He cooked up the steak and served alongside boiled potatoes, broccoli and peas with a homemade peppercorn sauce, making the meal only £3.14 per person.

Roy, 49, and Emma, 50, learned to become savvy shoppers as their family gradually increased, being parents to children ranging in age from four to 28.

The couple ditched the traditional weekly supermarket shop around five years ago, instead deciding to buy meat in bulk once a month and freeze it, and they say they’re about £200 better each month as a result.

Usually, the Hann’s will always freeze food in the run up to Christmas. Talking about planning for the big day Roy said: “I always make the gravy a few weeks before Christmas if we have a chicken dinner then freeze it.

“I then get it out Christmas Eve meaning all I need to do is reheat and serve on the day. Doing things like this can help take the pressure off when cooking for so many.

“Normally we would start thinking about Christmas in September, buying in presents and thinking ahead to even out the cost.

“Organising Christmas is a lot easier now the older children have their own homes. We can hide presents for the younger kids there and they can drive them over on Christmas Eve.

“For us, Christmas Day is very much a family affair, with older children bringing parts of the meals such as mashed potato and desserts to help ease the pressure on Emma and I.

“As a nurse I work every other Christmas, so it’s important to plan ahead to make the time I do get to spend with the children really special.

“I normally order my meat from the butcher and pick up the vegetables a few days before Christmas Eve, but being able to have everything delivered to the door by musclefood took the stress out of the process, freeing up more time to spend with the kids.

“The meat was of really good quality and it really did stretch. Leftovers are crucial to help making meals spread and I made a turkey curry which fed all ten of us again the next day for an extra 46p a person.”