All dressed up and ready to party

Well...so much from trying to post on a weekly basis! In my defence, I have had a busy fortnight, which by the way did not include waking up fresh as a daisy as hoped after my last post! It took another few days to get over my cold so I slowed down for a couple of days and let the weekend go by without too much action.  It was such lovely weather that I didn't want to stay indoors all weekend so I went for a stroll around the lake while the sun was out and shinning.  It has been a while since I have taken the opportunity to go for a walk by myself to enjoy the fresh air without listening to any music.  It was a beautiful morning topped off by wandering through the farmers market although no purchases were made this week.

I also couldn't let Sunday go by without trying a new recipe and I am not really sure why I decided to make two different recipes and both very time consuming but it seemed like such a good idea at the time.  I made char sui chicken dumplings as well as black bean pork pot stickers.  I did make my own pastry for the chicken as this was a deep fried version of a dumpling but used store bought gow ghee for the pot stickers. The chicken was a little bit of a disaster I think, probably the first new recipe Sunday I was really unhappy with.  I don't have a deep fryer so just fried them in a saucepan and I think this was the real problem as I wasn't able to get the temperature of the oil right.  Luckily the pork was really delicious so I didn't feel like a complete failure for the night on top of being sick!! This was a fairly simple recipe even though it was a little time consuming so I would recommend giving this one a go.

It was back to work for another jam packed week but I definitely wont bore you with work!  I didn't even make it out to dinner with my friends this week so I don't have an exciting restaurants reports for you so I'll just skip straight to the weekend again haha!  I had a family 21st on this week so I made the long and tiring trip down to the farm on Saturday and back again on Sunday.  I remember why I don't do this anymore, I am not sure how I used to do this on a regular basis as a Uni student...maybe coming back to 16 hours of class for the week instead of 40 hours of work for the week had something to do with it!!  Getting back late means there was no new recipe Sunday so instead you get to see a picture of me and my lovely Mumma all dressed up and ready to party.  I certainly left my healthy eating habits back in Ballarat for the entire weekend as I chowed down on some delicious party food!  I always enjoy going home to the farm, even if I complain about the long trip, but it is always worthwhile when I get to see all my extended family which seems to be less and less as the years go by. Why must we all grow up and move to different places!!!?

I have managed to make it through the week and I am really looking forward to the long weekend at home with no plans what so ever! I hope you all enjoy your weekend and perhaps get some cooking inspiration to try your own versions of new recipe Sunday.  No matter how tired, keep smiling as you never know who may smile back xox