Happy Birthday You'll Get What You're Given!

Today marks a year since I posted my first blog post as You'll Get What You're Given!

One of my aims with this blog was to try a new recipe every week for a year and frankly I didn't manage that.  Not even close! Although I like to cook, sometimes life gets in the way and I end up falling back on take aways or tried and tested recipes.

That's not to say that the idea has been a failure the 52 recipe challenge has made me try recipes I might not have otherwise tried and experimented with new dishes.

Some were delicious and worked well, others were disastrous!

But if I never tried to make these things I would never know how to avoid these errors!

So whilst the 52 recipe challenge hasn't gone entirely to plan I think that's ok.

It's been a funny year, since I began to write this blog I bought a house, moved in, tried to write a novel... I've written 54,275 words so far. (No, you can't read it I'm afraid it's for my eyes only!)

My job situation changed from commuting to work, then getting made redundant and having the opportunity to find a lovely job nearer to home.

I've had a few recipes in Now Then magazine and review the odd thing or two for Tweeted Review.

Sometimes I also like to write odd blog posts on this about books I read, what I've been to see or have tried to do. I'm planning on keeping writing this blog about food, music, books and whatever I think is of interest, so here's to another year!

Things I have been doing instead of blogging...

Sometimes the time just seems to fly away from you like cats fleeing the sound of a hoover or a hairdryer.
This month has been one of those months where I've turned around and realised it's March already!

So I neglected the blog last month for a few reasons, the first being that I got a new full time job after just over a month of unemployment.

First payslip of the year!

This is obviously great news but it's leaving me a bit shattered in the evening and driving me to making my tried and tested fast dishes over new recipes. (This is something I need to counter!)  My new team are treating me well though and feeding me up with donuts.

I don't like pink but I am a fan of sparkly things!

 

 Things have started to get sorted a bit more with the house. (I've finally got a shower not just a bath!)

A shower at last!

I also started up a baking club... which I forgot to take pictures of.  Rest assured there was copious amounts of cake involved! 

At a similar time I came up with the idea of doing a payday tea post. My plan was to try out the food at The Great Gatsby next to my work but alas they only served crisps that night.  So I went back to my old favourite, The Wick at Both Ends and enjoyed a lamb curry & wedges from the Wick and Mix menu.

My boyfriend had his usual massive burger.

And I treated myself to a Dark & Stormy as well as a Bit of a Ginge whilst I was there too...

On the same night we went to see the rather good Standard Fare.

As well as the frankly brilliant Allo Darlin'!

This was in The Queens Social Club, a working man's club just out of Sheffield centre, complete with sparkly backdrops and an absence of stage lights. It was still a packed show filled with new treasures and old favourites like Dreaming and the Polaroid song.

I may have got excited and danced so much my bobble fell out of my hair... what of it?

So that's my excuse for being lax with my blogging, what have your distractions been recently?