Honey Ginger Tea

The first time I had Ginger tea was in HK after eating Hairy Crab....
Hairy Crab is considered to be very cold and many people are actually allergic to it.
I didn't know I was because it was my first time eating it...
So I felt really super sick after....surprisingly the Ginger Tea helped push back the ache for a time period until my allergic reaction broke out....

Now I drink when my tummy hurts and it helps it feel better (I think some people drink Ginger Ale and it does the same thing...but this is healthier :))

Also, according to Chinese Hot/Cold theory, since Ginger "hot/warm" it's good when you're starting to get sick with a cold too.

It's really super simple to make as long as you have ginger at home...(since I'm Chinese I always have ginger at home)

Ingredients
2 slices of ginger (medium size)
1 Mug of water (A little bit more since you'll loose some to steam)
~ 1 tsp honey or to your taste

Cut 2 slides of ginger from the root, fairly thin is fine.

Put it in a pot/kettle and fill it with your cup of water and bring the water to boil.

Boil for ~30secs and turn off the stovetop.
Let it sit there and steep for about 10 mins.



Add about 1 tsp of Honey into your cup before you pour your tea into the cup.

Stir and you're ready to drink :)

I hope it helps

Lavender Honey Shortbread Cookies

So I've been wanting to make cookies from Lavender for a while. I remember the horrible lavender Gelato I had in Italy because they over used Lavender but I couldn't help but wonder how would it taste like if I use the right amount of Lavender.

So, I finally made an effort and went to Nora's Natural Food store to pick up some lavender.

I looked through several different recipes and decided to use this one with a bit of adjustment
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/09/honey-lavender-shortbread-cookies-recipe.html
The recipe still needs a little bit of tweeking. I'm actually unsure if the saltiness was due to the lavender or if I added too much salt.

I'll post what I actually ended up doing when I finish tweeking the recipe.

On a whole, the lavender is a unique taste. I would adjust to have slightly less lavender.
If you don't over use lavender, it won't taste like you're eating perfume.  
I will definitely try making these again but after some tweeks.

Recipe with minor tweeks thus far

Ingredients
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking poweder
2 tsp lavender (I liked a little bit less as lavender is very strong)
6 ounces of butter
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup icing sugar

Grind lavender in a spice grinder, add some of the flour to the grinder if you find that it's not grinding well. I grind the lavender until it was fairly fine

Mix the flour, baking powder and lavender together in a medium size bowl

Cream the butter, honey and sugar. Beat until well mixed
Add the dry ingredients and mix until it's combined

Place onto parchment paper and roll it out (I like to use Gordan Ramsey's technique that he does for the beef wellington to make my roll, video 5:50 mark)

Place into fridge and wait for it to firm up.
Cut into 1/5 inch thick disks.

Cook for 15min or until light golden brown in a 350 degree F oven.

First post

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while but never got around to doing it.

Even though I've been cooking and baking while I'm in school I haven't had time to blog.

Now that I'm getting close to graduation I want to try to blog.