We made a quick dash to Jones's, bought what I needed and then it was home to commence my cooking. I was so glad I'd tidied and cleaned the garage yesterday as it took me all day to prepare my dishes, sort out the table and clean the downstairs of the house.
I made the hotpot first and browned the cubes of lamb in hot lard. I then sauteed two onions, four carrots and two leeks and mixed them all together with some stock and two herby stock cubes. It smelt delicious!
After making the hotpot I peeled what seemed like hundreds of onions for the soup and put that on to simmer. I was going to heat it up later and add the crusty bread and cheese just before I served it. After cooking I set the table and banished Archie from the sofa in the conservatory. Monty was also banned from the garage so he was not at all happy and spent most of the day yowling at the back door, much to my extreme annoyance!
Much of today was spent preparing stuff so I didn't have to do too much later when Lynda, Andrea and Fiona arrived. I opened two bottles of Claret and poured them into my decanter before trying the sherry I'd bought. It was quite sweet and I didn't think it would go too well with my nibbles - baked potato skins. I decided to serve a dry white wine instead and save the sherry for my trifle.
Before going to collect Sophie from Uni I made the basis of my trifle and started to worry as I'd never made a trifle before and it looked like it was going to be a disaster! However, I persevered and planned on serving ice-cream if it looked like it was going to be inedible!
When Sophie and I returned home I shredded a whole white cabbage as I was going to cook it slowly with an onion and some bacon lardons. I put the hotpot in the oven at 6.30pm and then went and had a quick bath and washed my hair.
Sophie wasn't in the best of moods this evening so I was a bit fearful about my victory rolls. However, she did an absolutely fantastic job and by 7.15pm I was dressed and ready and looking very much like a wartime housewife! I put the finishing touches to my meal and went to welcome the girls who arrived in a burst of noise and laughter!
Lynda and Andrea were dressed as land-girls while Fiona was a very elegantly dressed lady from the 1940s. They bought flowers and lots of wine and Andrea even had a genuine gasmask with her! They admired all the little bits I'd put out (ration books, identity cards etc) and very soon we were nibbling on my baked potato skins and sipping white wine.
The meal went down very well and I was extremely pleased how the soup and hotpot turned out. Everyone had seconds and the lamb was beautiful and tender so I was relieved! After we'd eaten the main course I turned on my Hudl and played the video of the air raid siren and told everyone to go outside to the "shelter". I'd put a heater out there and it had been working for four hours but it was still quite chilly as the night was much colder than of late. We sat in there and I lit the candles and turned on the little lamps and it was lovely. If it had been warmer I would have been quite happy to have stayed there a bit longer!
Back in the conservatory we played a game I'd bought "True or False?" and then we enjoyed my raspberry sherry trifle which turned out to be delicious, thank goodness!
We drank some more wine and then I made tea for everyone and the girls finally left in a taxi at 1.30am! Phew! Sophie had done all the washing up and clearing away and I was so thankful for her help as there was only the wine glasses and dessert bowls to wash up. She came downstairs and I was amazed to see her as I thought everyone was in bed. By 2am I'd tidied everything away, turned all the lights out and was more than ready for my bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment