Crazy time for sandwiches

I am writing this as I wait for my rosemary focaccia dough to rise. It is 6.45 in the morning and I have been up for a while now, stressing out from wondering if I have taken on more than I can handle.

Veggie Chick and I have been planning a little homemade sandwich business for a while now. We call our outfit Crazy Juliet. We're just supplying in-house at the office and serving only on Mondays. We put out the menu with a selection of three options earlier this week ­­– thyme roast chicken, curried tempeh and grilled eggplant ­­– and got 23 orders. That's actually a doable number for us.

Only thing is, it's the Easter weekend and in hindsight, it may not have been the best decision, for me at least, to start serving on the Monday after Easter. I want to enjoy the day with my family but I am stressing out over whether I will have time after Sunday's lunch to prepare my part of the orders. With the focaccia out of the way, I still have wholemeal buns to make, chicken to roast and some grilling to do. And please don't think VC is not doing much; we work on separate sandwiches and this week I have two to make but next time she'll have the bulk of the tasks. I guess we underestimated the interest in homemade sandwiches.

With so much still to do, I don't know if I'll be able to fulfil my seven-year-old nephew's request. Two days ago, he asked if I could make Easter eggs ­­which we did together a couple of years ago – just the empty shells, coloured and filled with confetti. That I may disappoint him is really painful for me.

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It's 12.24pm now and I came back from the baking supply shop and market a while ago. I've just marinated the chicken, which gets cooked tomorrow and have cut up the focaccia into individual portions ready to be filled with grilled eggplant, onion jam and a few other condiments. Here's the bread.

You know, I bought four bags of white and wholemeal flour and a multi-packet box of instant yeast and thought that was a lot. How wrong I was! As I was paying, this guy puts his shopping basket down at the cashier's and it is filled with those blue 500g packages of Bruggeman yeast. There must have been at least two dozen packages! He even asked the manager if there was more. And here I thought I was going to do a lot of breadmaking...

So now it's on to the wholemeal buns for the roast chicken. I really hope I have time later today to work on those Easter eggs...

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It's 10.19pm now and I've just come back from Easter mass and dinner with some of my family. My wholemeal buns, which were proofing while I was out of the house, are now in the oven and smelling good. I doubt I'll be making those Easter eggs for my nephew though. My mum is planning an Easter egg hunt tomorrow so I hope he won't be too disappointed. I feel really bad...