Cherry Season

Just sneaking in a quick post about my weekend spent at Young, NSW, where we picked cherries. They were big, juicy, red and absolutely beautiful, we ate as we picked and brought home over 12 kilograms of our fruits of labour...awesome!

Hope you had a great weekend too. See you in a week. Next stop: Vanuatu!

See you later!

Picture from here.

I'll be away for the next 2 weeks, spending time with my lovely parents who are visiting from Singapore and making a trip to the country for some cherry picking before zipping off to an island escape with just Stu...can't wait.Take care, be good and I'll see you later!

Paint the town red

"When in doubt, wear red." - Bill Blass
Pictures from here.

Fly me away

Some days (such as today), I just want to fly far, far away.

Pictures from weheartit.

Friday Freesias

Do flowers make you happy? They certainly have that effect on me. No matter how rough a day I've had, how tired I feel, the presence of fresh flowers at home never fail to cheer me up. Today, I have some lovely yellow and white freesias at home, they don't just look great, they smell wonderful too.

Chicken wontons

Made a batch of chicken wontons recently. They're definitely one of my favourite things to eat; so slippery and tasty. I usually make heaps, eat some and freeze the rest for later use, with noodles in soup, or just boiled with chili and dumpling sauce as a snack...yums!

They're incredibly easy to make too, recipe below:

Filling:
250g minced chicken
sugar, salt and pepper (pinch each)
2 teaspoons potato flour
1 tablespoon water
1 packet on wonton pastry

Mix the chicken with the salt, pepper, sugar, potato flour and water.
Stir until the water is absorbed into chicken.
Place 1 teaspoon of chicken mince in the centre of the wonton pastry.
Gather the edges of the pastry at the top. Pinch and twist to seal the top.
Repeat with the rest of the pastry and mince.

If you want to cook them in soup, just follow these steps:

Soup seasoning:
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
ground white pepper, a pinch)
2 drops soy sauce
1 shallot, finely chopped
1.2 tablespoon of fried shallots
Chinese greens
2 cups chicken stock/water

Bring pot of water to boil.
Place the chicken wontons in boiling water, stirring occasionally to avoid them sticking to the pot. Once they float to the surface, wait for a further 2 minutes, then drain and put them into a serving bowl.
Use the same pot to blanch the Chinese greens, drain and discard the water.
Boil the stock/water for the soup. Put all the soup seasoning over the wontons in a bowl. Pour the soup over the wontons.

Awards and things to do in this lifetime

Rebecca of Daydreams in lace has given me the really cute Sugar Doll award, thanks so much, I feel so fab and honoured! I'm supposed to tell you 10 things about myself, but I thought I'd tweak it a little and tell you about 10 things I want to do in this lifetime instead.

They are:

1. Go on a hot air balloon ride.2. Go on an African safari.

3. Spend a few nights at the Giraffe manor.

4. Become a mom.

5. Buy a huge piece of land in the countryside and adopt unwanted dogs and other animals.

6. Have my own kitchen garden.

7. Learn to make soap.

8. Take a year off and travel around Australia.

9. Learn to sew my own dresses.

10. Sleep under the stars at Longitude 131°, Uluru.

I'm passing the award along to:

Simply Bee

Caitlin Bananas

Lulu Letty

em-illi

katiecrackernuts

Becks

mica

emimonster

The Professional Bridesmaid

Social Climbers

Long weekend, at a glance

Re-potted some plants Had yumcha for brunchBought new coffee cups Shared tapas with friends

Stu and I took last Friday off, so we could have a long weekend to spend together. We did a whole lot of simple but lovely things, but mostly, we just hung out, which was nice, especially after Stu's been working non stop for nearly a month.

How was your weekend?

November notes

Some totally random November things. Picture from here

Counting down to:

Stu finishing up his work project and not coming home stressed and upset anymore.

Mom and dad visiting from Singapore

Cherry picking weekend

Holidaying with Stu at the end of the month

Reading:

Ice age, a novel about travelling on the road, easy reading but nothing to rave about.

Watching:

Gossip Girl season 1 on DVD, I know I'm pretty far behind, but I missed so many episodes on TV, I wanted to watch season 1 before catching up with the rest of the world.

Haunted by:

A Model Daughter: The killing of Caroline Byrne. Watched it on TV last night and it left me thinking deeply about life, relationships, the poor dad, love, hate, greed, everything.

Looking forward to:

The holiday season

Buying pressies and gift wrapping everything nice and pretty.

An end of year getaway in the country.

Raving about:

Avon Anew Rejuvenate Flash Facial Revitalizing Concentrate. There are only a few products I would ever rave about and this is one of them. It's seriously good.

Melbourne Cup today

It's the race that stops the nation, so as a good resident of Australia, I am putting everything on hold to spend this Melbourne Cup day at the pub; eating, drinking and hopefully winning lots of money. Wish me luck!