There is nothing like the pillow softness of a big juicy pork bun. After your teeth have sunk through the tender dough, they reach the slightly more toothsome meaty filling, that is tender, juicy and very tasty.

The anticipation involved in waiting for your pork buns, the ones that you made for yourself is huge. You know that once they are done, you need/must get them out of the pot, and into your mouth as soon as possible. So that the buns can be as fresh and as hot as possible in order to get the maximum enjoyment out of them.

They are really quite easy to make. I recommend going with your flavour whim, “to bbq pork, or not to bbq pork that is the question ” lol. These dumplings were of the “not to bbq pork” variety and instead contained some pickled mustard greens. The filling is better if it all gets a nice while to marinate together, so ensure you make the filling before you start on the dough.

This is how the meat looked prior to being stuffed into the dough. Have you noticed how large they are? I know it is quite hard with no frame of reference, so you will just have to trust me.

One of the advantages of making these yourself beside the flavour, which is so much better, is that you can have little balls of meat or huge big ones which are hardly contained by the dough, this was the angle I chose.

When you see the buns all cooked and ready in your pot, I almost defy you to not drool.

The filling:

For huge meatballs 500gms of meat, for small balls about 250gms, a mix of pork, chicken or what ever you like just make sure that at least half of the meat is on the fattier side, just for the flavour.

To this I added:
garlic chives, garlic, ginger, pickled mustard greens, coriander stems, lots of pepper, a little corn starch, toasted sesame oil and some hoisin sauce. I then mixed it together and put it well covered in the fridge to marinate.

For the dough, I used:

4 cups of self raising flour
1/2 up of sugar dissolved into 1 cup of milk
and 1 tbsp of oil

The sugar milk needs to be mixed into the flour and then needed for along time (around 15 - 20 mins) then add the tbsp of oil and need until it is as smooth and soft as a baby’s bottom (about 10 mins) then put the dough aside and leave it to rest for 1/2 hr.

Then divide the dough into 12 portions and add 1/12th of your meat mix (if you make it into balls first it is much easier) then seal them up.

You need a large pot of boiling water (enough to last 20 mins) then just before you put your dumplings in add some vinegar. Steam for 10 mins and then remove the lid and remove any built up moisture on the lid, put the lid back on and steam for 10 more minutes.

Then get ready to eat, these are much more fun if you have a huge group of starving people ready to descend on them as soon as they emerge from the steamer.

They are supposed to freeze well after being steamed but I never have any left over!

If you go out for Yum Cha, what are your favourite kind of Dumpling?
For me that question is easy, hands down, no question; Har Gow are my favourite.

Logically, with the amount I like to cook, it wouldn’t take too long for me to want/need/have to learn to make them for myself. Somehow it managed to take a lot longer, than logic should conclude, for me to learn to make them myself.

At Yum Cha the perfectly shaped little dumplings seem so easy, just a little filling in some dough, that you neatly smush together.

Easy.

Um, perhaps not.

I don’t want you to think these are difficult to make, but they are tricky, even trickier to do well. Luckily once cooked, and then tasted, they are perfect.

These babies are made with pork mice, chunckily chopped green king prawns, white pepper, sesame oil and garlic chives from the garden. This was mixed together and then allowed to marinate for a couple of hours in the fridge. (amounts to taste)

The pastry, is a mix of 50/50 wheat starch and tapioca starch. I actually bought a packet that had the right proportions. All up it was 340gms of starch, 1.5 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of oil.Then cold water and oil is combined and the mix is cooked very slowly over a low heat continually stirring until it is done, as the recipe I had so precisely stated. Ouch. But even with my inexperience they worked fine. The main hint that I would like to give is that you need to let the dough cool right down and that oil is your friend. Oil stops the dough sticking. I hadn’t considered the difference between this dough and one containing gluten. Let me tell you they behave a world apart differently.

The dough is rolled out as thinly as you can handle, I rolled mine on baking paper and then use a glass to cut a circle. The dough can be re-rolled as there is no gluten to make the dough tough!

Then a tsp (depending on your glass size) of filling is put in the middle of the circle and the dough is pleated together, if you can, I dare you.

Then place them in a steamer on baking paper over boiling water, steam for 6 minutes. Eat with soy sauce as quickly as possible. Berate the photographer (if present) as much as possible so that you can EAT DUMPLINGS SOONER.

I hope I haven’t dissuaded you from attempting these dumpling, nothing, nothing at all tastes better that a big pot or 2 of steaming, fresh, har gow that you made your self. Priceless.

Hey guys I promised you that I would youtube my turtle hatchlings!

I hope that this makes someone out there happy……

Turtles emerging from the sand

Turtles running for the water, look at those little dudes go! And yes they are that fast in real life but even cuter

I bet you just want to see the cake well I figured that I should show you something else first so just hold onto your cake forks.

When I was first looking into doing the seating for the wedding I didn’t really have an idea except that we wanted to do something different that normal. More intimate and taking advantage of the fact that we were in a beautiful restaurant so this is how we set up the room:

Can you see that poor lonely little round table in the centre? Well that was the bridal table. It worked awesomely, every table was close (there were 2 tables up the top where the photos were taken due to limited mobility of guests). Anyway…. I just thought I should share

Can you see the little bags on each of the tables? They have little named cookies for each guest as place cards! .. would have been better if the person that made them could spell! LOL

Ok onto the cake

Vital statistics
Weight: 10 kilos

Components:
Chocolate: 4 kilos
Raspberries  1 kilo
Made by: Snowflakes bakery, Thredbo
Flowers: Tara Burton, Shire Florist, Jindabyne
Amount consumed on the night, only the middle layer!

Oh boy

Oh boy!

I was so worried about the cake!  and I absolutely shouldn’t have been. The flavour was amazing! I think it was the surprise hit of the night. There are layers of chocolate mud cake and chocolate ganache with raspberries.
Then there are the crazy things that the cake does to you, especially when you are about to share it with your fam and friends

Where we were going on our honeymoon was supposed to be a huge surprise, for months Casey (and everyone else..) had been teasing me about where we were going; apparently there was even a betting pool at the wedding over the location! So imagine this: Casey is tired after a very long yet fun wedding weekend and it is the night before we leave for the honeymoon. I am asking for clues, then all of a sudden out of the blue Casey comes out with “There is great snorkelling on Heron Island” to which I was all like “Where did you say?” To which the boy attempts to get back by saying and a heap of the other islands too… I looked at him squarely and said I can’t believe you, where going to Heron Island aren’t we. The rest is history lol

So we get up early the next morning to catch some flights to Gladstone.  The weather is awful, pouring with rain, not only in Sydney, but in Brisbane, Gladstone and Heron. The best part if you ask me is that this made for some interesting flights, I believe a flight with no turbulence is a flight not worth taking, Casey thinks I am nuts lol.

The best? only? good thing about rain on your honeymoon is the beautiful sunsets and the cocktails that are associated with them

The Gantry (that wooden object) provided the most perfect location to take spectacular cloud aided sunset shots.  The next thing to do on the island after drinking cocktails and watching the sun go down was of course to go and have dinner. The food on heron varied between really good to midly ok. It has to be taken into account though that the food to heron is delivered once a week by boat as it lies 70 kms off the coast of gladstone. Dinner most nights was your choice of 2 or 3 courses ($45 - 50) or a buffet ($50) per person. . Here are a few photos of the meals.

Morton Bay Bugs with Rasberry vinagrette

Barramundi Fillet with Israli cous cous and bok choy (main course)

Crab and Avocado Salad (entree)

Apart from eating, drinking, sleeping, reading and walking most of the activities on the island involve taking advantage of the natural sea life.  Heron Island started off life as a fishing resort, but now it is located within a fishing ban, so the island staff run fishing trips of 3 hours out beyond the restricted zone which takes about 1/2 an hour depending on where they take you too. Mostly they aim for you to catch coral trout or red emperors. Pretty much as soon as our bait hit the reef we would have to pull our hand line back up to the boat to re-bait them. We definately felt like we were apart of some huge feeding zoo to feed the wildlife . We didn’t actually catch anything that was a legal size, but we still caught alot. But one of the friends Anthony, that we met on the island, not only caught a legal sized coral trout but also an 18 kilo Spanish Mackerel! Anthony was gracious enough to share his fishy bounty with us at dinner and boy oh boy were we happy! The coral trout was ok but the mackerel was SUPERB!

Coral  Trout Teeth and yummy Mackerel flesh

Of course the main aim was to observe the wildlife, either by walking or snorkling ( I had planned on Scuba diving but due to a horrendous flu I had a few weeks before I wasn’t allowed too ) So Whilst going for a stroll on the first beautiful on heron (and the first rain free day for 8 days) we very luckily came across a pile of newly hatched Green Sea Turtle Hatchlings. This was amazing! We were told told that all the hatchlings had hatched 2 weeks before we arrived. I couldn’t believe our luck when we happened upon them and in the middle of the day!. Man are they cute and fast! We have some very cute video footage as well I may try and figure out utube so that I can share it with you all

So as you can see we had fun! and lots of it

Hello my good people!

We are back! It was awesome

I guess that you might like some details???

Ok, well being slightly unusual, Casey and I thought that instead of the usual wedding we would get married in neither of our hometowns! Because we were getting married on the second day of winter we would embrace the whole it would be cold idea and get married in the snow! (hopefully) We got our wish and were married at 2pm on Saturday the second of June in Thredbo, beside the Thredbo river with a light drift of snow/rain. I was only half an hour late….

Then wearing open toed shoes we ran about and had photos taken in the snow at dead horse gap. We then returned to the hotel where most of our guests and us were staying, The Denman hotel. It was fabulous, the atmosphere, the food, being on holidays with 100 of our closest friends and family. AWESOME. (if you know anyone who wants a wedding with fabulous food absolutely recommend this place! We had Salmon pastrami, toasted sourdough with EVOO,Pumkin tortellini with beurre noisette & sage for entree, Coddled ocean trout, kipfler potatoes & pistou, Confit duck leg with watercress, celery & walnut salad, chardonnay vinaigrette for mains and poached meringue and berry shake and quince tart and clotted cream for dessert. Oh and the cake (OMG SO GOOD) will have it’s own whole post
We then returned to Sydney to head off on our “secret” honeymoon, except that after months of managing to keep a secret of the destination Casey had a huge brain fart/meltdown and gave the location away! OOPS

So early the next morning we headed off to Heron Island, for 6 nights of awesome island resorty/turtley/snorkley/cocktaily goodness. It was pouring with rain (we almost died hahha in the helicopter on the way over, if you listen to casey ) That might sound bad, except that it was the 8th day of rain and the weather improved every day that we were there. We then headed back to Brisbane where we checked out a new city, hung out with my new sis Hi Jen! and met up with friends of mine from high school and an auntie and cousin of mine. It rocked.

Luckily we missed some awful, awful weather while we were gone. I can’t believe we are back in real life. *sigh* which really starts again…. tomorrow! ack.

We are trying to get the billions of wedding and honeymoon photos into some semblance of order and I will post some stunning photos promise, I was going to wait.. but I thought this was a much better idea
All our love, and thanks so much for the kind wishes

CG^2!

p.s. for those of you that are married how long does it take to get used to being married and … having a new name?

I tried to make a post before we set off but our internet speed was slashed as we exceeded our quota. oops.

But the most exciting part is of course that I am married

Our family and friends joined us for 5 days of frivolities at Thredbo in the snowy mountains. It was AWESOME.

A huge party and we got to hang out with friends and families, it was just like we all went on a big holiday to the snow together!  I will try and get a pic or 2 up but I am packing to go on a secret honeymoon. By that I mean casey knows where we are headed but not I!

xx

cncnk!