How to Prepare Your Kitchen Appliances for Christmas

While Christmas is a time for celebration, giving presents and spending time with loved ones, it’s fair to say that the festive season brings its fair share of stress, too.

From worrying about what presents to buy to fretting about where to seat that mildly offensive uncle, arguably the biggest worry of all surrounds Christmas dinner.

As the main event of Christmas Day, the cooking can feel extremely stressful if you’re in charge – especially when catering for a large group.

With this in mind, the idea of one of your kitchen appliances not working correctly is almost unthinkable. 

To help make your Christmas dinner go as smoothly as possible, we’ve put together a handy guide on how best to prepare all your kitchen essentials. 

Storing food prior to Christmas

At Christmas time, your fridge is likely to be crammed with a whole host of festive treats. From the bulk of your Christmas dinner to delicious cheese boards, sweet desserts and a copious amount of fizz, it would be rude not to indulge at this time of year!

But, all this excess food and drink might start to take its toll on your fridge and freezer. If you don’t want to spend your time playing Jenga in the fridge to try and make everything fit, there are a few things you can do.

First, give your fridge a thorough clean and proper clearout a few days before Christmas. By doing this, you’re likely to find stuff that can be thrown out, leaving more space for those big-ticket Christmas items.  

You may also want to defrost your freezer at the same time. Over time, large chunks of ice can build up in the shelves inside your freezer, meaning there’s less room to store food. While defrosting may take a while, you’ll have far more space as a result.  

Finally, purchasing a drinks rack for your fridge is the ultimate space saver. Bottles of wine, champagne and beer can soon overwhelm a fridge, so the addition of a rack is a good way to neatly store all your bottles in one place – leaving plenty of space for everything else.

Cooking Christmas food

Prior to putting the turkey and veg inside the oven, it’s always a good idea to give it a good clean. Focus on the glass door, we all know that timing everything to be ready simultaneously is akin to a military operation on Christmas Day and even the most accomplished chefs need all the help they can get. A clear, glass door means that you’ll be able to constantly monitor the status of your meal without having to keep taking it out of the oven to check. 

Make sure you test all your appliances a few days, or even weeks, before to ensure everything is working as it should be. This way, you’ll spot any issues early and have time to fix them. Include all the components of your oven, and give your dishwasher a service wash with a limescale remover.   

Timing is everything when it comes to Christmas dinner, so it’s lucky that most modern ovens come with timers to help you keep track of everything. It’s important to calibrate them to make sure they’re working as they should be. You can do this by preheating your oven, and then placing a thermometer inside. After ten minutes check that the thermometer meets the required temperature of your oven. If it does, then you don’t need to calibrate the oven. If the temperatures don’t match, then check your oven’s manual for calibration instructions specific to your appliance. 

Finally, to help with oven storage it might be advantageous to invest in extendable shelves so that you won’t have to struggle to fit everything in.

Clearing up after Christmas

No one wants to tackle washing up after the Christmas dinner has been eaten. After all, this is the time for feeling sluggish and maybe even an afternoon nap!

If you have a dishwasher, then most of the clearing up can be done for you. We know that the loading of a dishwasher can be a controversial topic in many households, but on Christmas Day it’s important not to overload it. 

It may be tempting to go hell for leather and chuck everything in, but this might just cause damage later on. Instead, focus on the dirtiest items first and put them on the bottom. Save the top rack for delicate items such as glasses.

Freezing/ refrigerating Christmas leftovers

There’s nothing better than a late-night turkey sandwich or tucking into Christmas leftovers on Boxing Day. But it’s important to know how to store them to avoid consuming any nasty bacteria. 

Luckily, it’s fairly straightforward. Most leftovers can remain in the fridge, properly covered, for around two days. When reheating, make sure you bring the leftovers to at least 70℃ and keep at this heat for at least two minutes. It should be at this temperature all the way through, and you can use a digital thermometer to check.

You can freeze your leftovers, too. Get them in the freezer as soon as possible, this way they’ll maintain their freshness for longer. When you want to eat your frozen leftovers, you must allow 24 hours or so for them to defrost, before reheating them using the same method as above. 

What to do when an appliance goes wrong

If you notice a fault with any of your household appliances, it’s important to address it straight away. At Pacifica, we provide an extensive appliance repairs service in which we repair or install a whole host of domestic products, including ovens, washing machines, fridges and more. 

To make use of this service or to find out more about what we do, get in touch with our team today.