So, while we were in China, both Miles and I were unfortunate enough to catch a nasty cold, one of the nastiest colds I have ever had! It was GROSS!

Rather than reach for pain killers, we were advised to try drinking lemon honey tea. Much to my surprise it actually really helped keep some of the nasty effects of a cold at bay!

I currently have another cold! A day after my birthday! - not impressed! And after spending the day feeling very sorry for myself after some trusty Strepsils didn't do the trick, I came home and made myself a lovely lemon tea! I'm now much more comfortable!

Ok... So there is a downside to this. You do need to prepare this in advance and I was very lucky to have had a big batch on the go for a couple of weeks now. But it keeps for ages in the fridge so get a batch on now and you'll never be without this delicious tea again!

I actually found this recipe online somewhere but it was a while ago now and I can't find the link anywhere! The recipe is so simple though, it is one I will never forget, and it goes a little like this...

You will need: 

- 1 large clip top jar

- 2 lemons

- 1 bottle of squeezy honey, or a jar of your favourite (just make sure you have enough to cover all the lemons in the jar)

Method:

1. Boil a kettle and pour the water into the jar, clip it shut and give it a shake so that the jar is sterilised before you use it. Top out the water and leave to air dry.

2. Slice your lemons. Now, I like mine about a centimetre thick but you can slice yours as thick or thin as you fancy!

3. Put the lemon slices into the jar and cover with the honey.


4. Now is the best bit, give it all a jolly good stir, and pop the jar (clipped closed) into your fridge. Continue to stir every day and after about a week it is ready to use. I love seeing the honey and lemon turn into an amber syrup over the course of the week.

5. To make the tea, take a couple of the slices of lemon and a couple of tablespoons of the liquid and pop it into a mug. Cover with boiling water and drink just as soon as it is cool enough! Lemon heaven!


You don't have to have a cold to enjoy this drink, we love to drink it whenever, it's just so yummy! Also if you find the tea too sweet or not sweet enough try adjusting the amount of liquid you add to the boiling water when you make up the tea.

Can you believe it has been a year since we were in China!! That has gone scarily quickly!



One of my favourite things to eat for breakfast in China was Chicken Sushi... but not just any sushi... it had to be the stuff from a little rice ball shop on the University of Nottingham China Campus because their sushi was just to die for.

It's different from traditional sushi, its a little bit naughty... well, naughty for sushi anyway! This particular sushi has little crunchy bites of heaven (or crispy batter bits to everyone else) and a squirt of Japanese mayo over the top. OK... its not thaaaat naughty however I can assure you it is divine.

It quickly became one of my morning staples while we where out there, I'd go as far to say it even cured a hangover one morning! (Chinese wine is hideous).

I knew I had to be able to have this sushi when we returned back home but the language barrier prevented us from asking the lovely lady who made it for us every morning, what exactly she put in it.

I'd notice Miles studying the lady, once we had ordered each day. He would watch intently, to see how she made this perfect sushi which made our tummies so happy!



A couple of  Friday's after we returned from China, after work I came home to the smell of food wafting through the air, he was making my favourite sushi... and he only nailed it!

Of course he has made a big error on his part because now I have the poor man whipping up said sushi whenever I can now!

Anyway... I asked him very nicely to tell me how he does it so I can share the recipe with you lot!

You will need:

• 3 Seaweed wraps (Nori)


• 2 cups of sticky rice (prepared)


• 2 chicken breasts (sliced into strips)


• 2 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce (make sure its GF)


• 2 tablespoons gluten free soy sauce


• 1 cup gram flour


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• Some water


• A courgette (sliced into nice long strips)


• Vegetable oil


• Sushi rolling mat


• Cling film

For the dipping sauce:

• 1/4 cup Mayo (any mayo will do but if you can get it Kewpie mayo is AMAZING)


• 1 tablespoon of gluten free soy sauce

Method: 

1.Firstly take the chicken breast and pop in a bowl, add to the bowl the teriyaki sauce and the soy sauce and put in the fridge to marinade for at least half an hour. (a few hours is better however).

2.When your chicken is marinaded, stir fry in a little vegetable oil to cook through add the courgette and fry together for a few minutes, when it is cooked, set aside for later.



3. Next you will need to make your crispy batter bit (mmmmm), heat up some vegetable oil (about an inch deep) in a saucepan or a wok. Meanwhile you need to make up a batter with the baking powder, the gram flour and the water. Keep adding water until you have batter that is the consistency of tempura, and you're good to go!

4.When the oil is nice and hot, using a wooden spoon drop drips of the batter into the oil and fry until they are golden, it doesn't matter what shape they are as long as they come out nice and crispy. Drain on some kitchen roll and leave to one side.



5.Now you have prepared all the elements to the sushi, it is time to assemble.So, lay a sushi rolling mat and cling film out as demonstrated in the picture below.



6.Now, using a rice spatula or a spoon, put some of the sticky rice onto the cling film and spread it out, keep going until you have a fairly thin layer of rice the size of your seaweed wrap.



7.Place the seaweed wrap on top of the sticky rice and then flip over so the cling film is facing upwards and the seaweed wrap is now touching the sushi rolling mat. Peel off the cling film.

[gallery ids="1541,1544" type="rectangular"]

8.Now add your crispy bits- crumble them into smaller chunks and sprinkle them all over the rice, now add the chicken and courgette mix - this needs to be kept in a line parallel to the edge you are going to roll the sushi (I use the long edge so we get more slices, but Miles likes to use the short edge so we get more rolls) so it makes a nice pattern in the middle of the ring.

[gallery ids="1545,1536" type="rectangular"]

9.To roll! Take the edge of the seaweed wrap you have chosen to roll with and roll it in towards the rice, keep rolling until the sushi wrap is in a lovely neat little roll, sort of like a seaweed Swiss roll! Use the sushi mat but wrapping it around the sushi roll and pressing firmly while rolling the whole thing so that it sticks a bit better.

[gallery ids="1539,1538,1537" type="rectangular"]

10.Now, slice the sushi roll into 1" slices and serve with the dipping sauce*



*make the dipping sauce by simply mixing the mayo and soy sauce together. Delicious!!!



This recipe is so versatile, if you don't like chicken, use another meat... or mix it up with veg if you're vegetarian. or if you're feeling traditional use fish!

Oh my goodness I love ice cream... It's one of my favourite things to eat ever! I could polish off a tub of Ben and Jerry's in minutes! Yummy!

In China they actually have a variety of ice cream, they have specific areas in Mc Donald's that you can order ice cream at, I even saw an ice cream shop that offered cheese and bacon in your ice cream!! (I didn't feel adventurous enough to try some) however I did try green tea ice cream which was amazing! The one from Mc Donald's had a hint of jasmine with it, which I thought was quite refreshing, however my all time fave green tea ice cream came from a shop called Dairy Queen it's simply vanilla ice cream whipped with matcha (green tea powder). Miles' sister gave me a sachet of matcha that she had got on her travels but you can get matcha at a few places in the UK, it is very expensive here though because we use it for protein shakes! Last night I decided I wanted some ice cream, green tea ice cream to be precise :)
 So I mixed my sachet of matcha with some vanilla ice cream and it was delicious!

  Not quite as perfect as the DQ in China but still very tasty!

 

While Miles and I were in China, we went for an amazing meal at a Northern Chinese restaurant!

We ordered lots of different foods including 'sweet potato fries' which turned out to be chips coated in a hot sugar syrup which you dunk in water to set then munch on buuuuuut... That's a different story!

 Today I am going to tell you about a different dish, from the same restaurant called pumpkin cake. They look like fish cakes all golden, flat and round but they are indeed a confectionery!   They are sweet, gooey, crunchy, bright bites of joy with a hidden surprise inside! I really recommend you try them out!

I got the recipe from here and having visited the oriental shop last week I managed to gather the ingredients!   I made the recipe gluten free by blitzing up some gluten free bread I had and coated the cakes with that!   Then a quick shallow fry to give it a lovely crisp finish!

Beautiful!

So on to our purchases! We did buy a lot but I will say it was exceptional value! And it’s all authentic stuff!

So, if you read my post the other day about Korean BBQ you would have learned all about the meat side of things… Now I wanted to save this little beauty for a separate post because it is the queen of all comfort food. I don’t actually know how I have lived 26 years without it… until China.
Now, this dish goes under a variety of different names, I cannot speak Korean so I don’t know which one is legit but I will list the names it could be called: (According to Wikipedia)

- Teokbokki

- Ddeokbokki

- Topokki

- Dukboki

Do not ask me how to pronounce them… I am a blogger, not a genius!

Whatever it is called and however it is pronounced it is just glorious! Now before I start to describe it to you, you have to understand that in Asia they have something called rice cake. Yes, yes I know, we have rice cake too but theirs is very different to ours. Asian rice cake is soft and chewy, sort of a cross between a dumpling and pasta maybe?



Right, now that is out of the way, imagine said rice cakes in a slightly spicy red sauce with a generous hint of cheese in it. How can you not like the sound of that! Add in a few veg and there you have it… Ddeokbokki! As we did enjoy this dish with our Korean BBQ in China we ate it as before wrapped in a lettuce leaf, with a chunk of garlic and sauce. Delicious!



(My mouth is watering)

Anywayyyy moving on I had to have some more of this… the cravings got so bad I was dreaming Miles and I went all the way back to Ningbo, for lunch! So I decided to make some!

Now, when we were in China, one of the lovely girls we hung out with managed to get hold of some of the rice cakes and sauce for us, however the rice cakes need to be kept frozen and sadly didn’t make it back home but the sauce did! Now all I had to do was to find more rice cakes, however after a great deal of research I decided I was probably better off making my own (just in case I ended up accidentally poisoning Miles).

I managed to find an amazing recipe to do this here then all that needed to be done was to cook the rice cake in boiling water, add the sauce to the water, chop some veg, I used spring onions as we had some that needed to be used but literally any vegetable will do for this, some people even use eggs and Korean fish cake too. Then wait for the whole thing to thicken… Add some cheese, give it a stir and it’s good to go! (If you wanted to make your own sauce for this dish just google Ddeokbokki, I have found plenty of brill recipes that I cannot wait to try)

While we were in China one of my favourite. Meals to eat was Korean BBQ. Now when I say BBQ its completely different to a typical western style BBQ. You have a hot grill type thing in the middle of a table, you order a selection of veg and meat, and then you cook the food! It's amazing! And so damn tasty!      

Once you have cooked your meat you can eat it, we ate ours in a lettuce leaf with a healthy chunk of garlic, some Korean BBQ sauce and some sweet beans or kimchi.

My favourite dish from Korean BBQ had to be enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon. I reallllllly miss eating that right now so I decided the other evening I was going to recreate the Korean BBQ at home. Sadly I had to substitute the enoki mushrooms for oyster mushrooms but to be honest they tasted just as yummy! Here is how I did it:

You will need:

- a pack of oyster mushrooms

- 10 rashers of streaky bacon

- 1 little gem lettuce

- 2 cloves of garlic (sliced)

- 10 cocktail sticks

-Your favourite sauce (unless you can get hold of the Korean BBQ sauce)

Method:

1. Turn on your grill to medium heat, I used my George Forman for this and it worked perfectly but I am sure a normal grill will work just fine.

2. Wash the oyster mushrooms, take a rasher of bacon and wrap it round the mushroom, sort of like a pig in blanket. Secure with a toothpick and repeat the process until all the bacon is used up.

3. Your grill will be warm enough to use now so put as many of the mushrooms as you can on it and begin to cook. Turning half way through.

4. Meanwhile prepare the lettuce by washing it and pop it in a bowl, pop the garlic in a separate bowl ready for serving.

5. Your mushrooms will probably be ready or there abouts. Cook them how you like them to be done, if you like your bacon crispy, just leave them a little longer.

6. Ta da! It's ready, pop the mushrooms on a serving plate and they are ready to be devoured.

 

Hello my blogletts, I've not been hiding from you all again, honest. Miles and I are in China!! Yay!

I wanted to post this earlier however the wifi in Our hotel is not the best and I wasn't able to upload pictures until now! I am currently sitting in a gaming lounge watching Miles get his gaming fix!

We have, seen some amazing views and places, and eaten some amazing food but I won't spoil the posts that are to come just yet (sorry guys & dolls) I'm starting at the very beginning... Our flight.

So we flew with Finnair, a Finnish airline. I'll be honest with you, before I booked the flights I had never actually heard of them before! But they seemed pretty reputable from research is done online so I thought what the hell!

As with any journey, we had to plan ahead and luckily we were able to book a gluten free meal for Miles online, through their website (mega handy) however after having issues with other airlines *cough* British Airways *cough* we were worried weather this request would have 'got through' to the airline.

So the morning of our flight Miles' mum (thank you!) drove us to the airport, we actually managed to find some gluten free food in the terminal too (LHR Terminal 3) which was gluten free for breakfast, amazing!

  

Yes, that peacan pie is actually gluten free and yes we are at an airport!

So... After the yummy breakfast let's fast forward a little to the flight. We take off, are offered something to drink and then eventually dinner time comes, the panic starts... The hostesses are bringing their trolley closer to our flight row, panic sets in. What if we have a repeat of last time... I had some snacks but not enough for the 8 hours left on the flight. So When the time came I said to the hostess "we ordered a gluten free meal for Miles?" And within seconds a hot gluten free meal appeared in front of him! Miles was very impressed here is what he got...  

I was so sleepy I forgot take a picture of his breakfast, but he assures me it was yummy!

We were really impressed with the service from Finnair, with other airlines and sometimes even restaurants we get a negative vibe when we ask for a gf menu or if we ask if gluten is in certain foods but Finnair treated Miles like nothing was any trouble at all. They were polite and the meal tray was clearly marked gf!

We will deffo be flying with Finnair again (not just on the way home) because they ticked all our boxes. Thanks Finnair for looking after Miles on our first steps in our big adventure to China!