Plans, best-laid, agley-ganging

We have old friends from England coming to dinner tonight. In order to maximise the hanging-out-and-drinking time, I pretty much planned dinner to be ready in advance, nothing needing doing once they come.

Indeed, I planned to do the bulk of things this morning. Half a bottle of white wine has gone into the lamb shank braising liquid, and m'wife doesn't care for white; my plans included Chaz having a relaxed afternoon with the other half a bottle, largely in the garden, while things mulched slowly in the kitchen...

Heh. I should've known better, shouldn't I? Brenchley's First Rule of Everything is that Everything Takes Longer. 'Specially when you cock things up. I mixed the dough and left it to rise and totally forgot that I'm using a different kind of yeast that needs different treatment, that you can't just throw in dry and leave to get on with things: so two hours further in I am beginning again, and the deadlines on the dinner rolls suddenly look very tight indeed, given that we're starting with soup. Soup without bread is like eggs without a moustache, unless it's a kiss without salt.

There should still be time to make a recover, but margins are slim. So I am drinking anxiously, rather than indulgently. Hey-ho.

Still: it's a sunny Saturday afternoon, and I have half a bottle of chilled Grigio, and I guess things could be worse. Now I need to decide how to turn a bagful of fresh sorrel and a tub of homemade chicken stock into soup. Hmm...

Kitchen diary, menu etc

So: Andrew and Celia are due in ten minutes. Give or take.

I have made sorrel soup, largely by simmering carrot and onion and celery in butter first and then in a rather good chicken stock with a couple of handfuls of rice. Once that was all tender, I whizzed it up with lots of sorrel from Katherine's garden. It's pleasantly green to look at, and actually pleasantly green to taste.

I have made poppy-seed dinner rolls, at the second time of asking. Treated properly, the yeast was heroic in its rising and the time factor was not an issue. What was an issue was that I couldn't find my second oven glove, and turning a sheet of pull-apart rolls off a scorching baking tray onto a cooling rack is hard one-handed. I kinda squashed the rolls, and am upset.

The lamb shanks have simmered for hours in wine and citrus juices; I rather like the sauce, tho' that may just be me.

I have baby cauliflowers standing by to roast with garlic; and fingerling potatoes are being skillet-roasted as we speak.

That's about it. I meant to buy olives for nibbles, but I forgot. If people want dessert, I have Christmas pudding that can be sliced and fried in butter, without any of that cream-or-brandy-butter anxiety for we have both.

We have lots of wine. I think we're going to be okay.