Happy Friday friends!  What a week it has been, sometimes I need to pinch myself to remind myself that I’m not dreaming.  Above is a picture of my baking work station as part of the cooking master class that I was invited to attend with the lovely Gok Wan and Activia UK.  There were only two bloggers invited so it was quite an honour to go along.  It was such a fun day, one which can only be described as epic!  I will tell you all about my fantastic day soon as well as divulging the ins and outs of a Q&A that we did with Gok, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

We even got to take Gok home with us, with a signed copy of his new book.   I’ve had a flick through and so many recipes have caught my eye as well as the beautiful photography.

Like I said in Wednesday’s post, this week has been very much about getting back to normal and get back to a regular routine.  At the beginning of the week I felt dreadful due to some severe jet lag.  Although my sleeping patterns are not yet close to perfect they are getting there slowly.  Each night I seem to be getting that little bit of extra sleep, can’t argue with that.

Due to feeling drained when I come home from work I haven’t been to the gym since Monday.  I am hoping to go for a 3 mile run tonight though and yoga has been fantastic to help me unwind.  I’m not going to let it get me as I know that I can catch up at the weekend to get my preferred 3 gym workouts a week in.  My eats are back on track and I think I’ve done really well in tackling the post holiday bloat.  I had a lovely bowl of pumpkin oats the other morning:

Porridge oats, water, unsweetened almond milk, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, honey and almond butter made a wonderful mix of loveliness for breakfast.  I love me some squash!

Sticking with the autumnal theme for lunches this week I have been devouring the brown chickpea that I cooked in the slow cooker on Monday.  This is seriously yummy and hearty dish for lunch…another recipe to blog perhaps…

I have been back on one of my favourite salads this week. I just adore the blend of mixed leaves, red peppers, figs, Wensleydale cheese and dried fruit and nuts.  For something that can be just thrown together in a hurry I’m really surprised with how good this tastes.  It has definitely become a staple salad for me in the autumnal months.

I’ve been putting my slow cooker to good use this week, it lends such a helping hand.  One morning I threw in the ingredients for a slow cooked lamb stew and it was ready for dinner, with such minimal effort-you can’t go wrong!  I had my stew with buttered spinach and broccoli.

After such an epic week full of ups and downs (trying to get back to normal), thankfully more ups, I’m really looking forward to this weekend.  There is lots of recipe testing and writing penciled in for tomorrow and I’m off visiting my family on Sunday to show off my holiday snaps….can’t wait!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

What has made your week epic?  What are you getting up to this weekend?