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August 11, 2011

Happy National Day

to everyone!

Thank you to those who visited the farm on 9/8/11!!

A group of youths came in to catch frogs!!

“We will catch this frog with our Teamwork!”

“YAY! We caught it!”

“I can do it on my own now!”

More of them joined in the fun thereafter!

Good Job guys!

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Remember to check out the Special Promotions that will be published in The New Paper tomorrow(12/8), 19/8(Fri) and 26/8(Fri)!

We hope to see you croaking at the farm soon!

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August 5, 2011

Hosting Herpetology

thrice a week!

YCK Primary 1 students are a spontaneous bunch! I enjoyed hosting them throughout!

What I’ve been implementing at every single stations: if you want to get the kids to really understand what they’ve learned, get them to repeat important points at the end of every station. And at the end of the tour, ask them again!

Don’t we all get sick of memorising? If we understand what we’ve learned, every information will automatically get ‘saved’ into our memory! ‘Retrieving’ the information is ‘easy-peasy’!

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Remember to check out The New Paper for the Map of the Kranji Countryside TODAY! Also, check out the Special Promotions that will be published in The New Paper on the 12/8 (Fri), 19/8(Fri) and 26/8(Fri)!

We hope to see you croaking at the farm soon!

Happy National Day to all! 🙂

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August 4, 2011

Cherie Hearts

braving the rain!

Although it was raining, the kids’ excitement was not dampen at all! Well done! Today marks my 2nd hosting of the Herpetology WS!

Cherie Hearts consist of very young kids of ages 4-6 and they need to take a longer time to fill in answers. However, good job to them for being receptive in learning at such a young age! Different people tend to learn at different phase just like the growing process of frogs! Just to digress, not all tadpoles grow into baby frogs in the same week; some tend to take a longer time to grow into a frog!

Before I end off, here’s a famous quote that I really like “It’s not the destination that matters but the journey that counts.” Because all the lessons we learned comes from the journey.

I hope we’ll all learn something new everyday! 🙂

(P.s I figured that if the kids are shy to make any interaction, I need to change my presentation technique and so I did! ;))

August 4, 2011

6th Day of SJ Trial – Savoury Collagen Omelette

I must admit that i’m pretty tired of adding snow jelly in all the sweet desserts. Today i am going to experiment with adding the Processed Snow Jelly (Pls read below) into my favourite omelette. I remember seeing this cook performing this recipe in a cooking show before when i was younger and Mum actually did tried it!

Guess i must be pretty young when Mum was buying the dried snow jelly from medical halls. I do have recollections of her using a tweezer to pluck out those black specs and threads etc.. the smell of those products were pungent so she usually add in ginger in her cooking to kill that smell.

When i was in my mid teens, Dad started experimenting processing the snow jelly from the raw products and our family eat A LOT of that. Luckily for sweet toothed me, i aLWAYS like hashima for its texture and that it’s always done sweetened. I have ever even frequent Soup Restaurant to take away their Double boiled Hashima with rock sugar for $6 – $8 a bowl. The portion was meagre!!=(

Back to this recipe, the result was fantastic! As Froggie Guide has suggested, it has a bit of the oyster omelette bite. This recipe is certainly one which i will definitely try again! It took me barely 10 mins to get it done!

Recipe (serves 3):

1. Beat 3 eggs together with a pinch of salt and pepper

2. Cut up a small stalk of chives and 2 small slices of ginger.

3. 50 gms of soaked (In plain water) snow jelly. You may boil this portion of snow jelly for about 15 mins first before sieving it out.

4. Heat up wok with some vegetable oil. Add in (1), followed by (2), Lastly (3) when omelette is 75% cooked.

5. Serve Hot!

August 2, 2011

Brand new month,

brand new week with a brand new start, at least for me!

I finally did my first Herpetology Workshop with YCK!!! The kids were very attentive during the tour but it would definitely make the group much more enjoyable if I could get them to shout out answers and have them interact with me more!

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed my time with the kids! 🙂

Another interesting update would be from Teacher Sheena of PCF Punggol East Education Centre! JFF had our very first collaboration with a school and interacted with the kids via Skype on the 2oth July 2011!

Hosting the kids via Skype is truly a refreshing start of educating children anywhere, everywhere real time! However, everything good comes with cons attached. For example, the kids couldn’t hear, touch or feel the actual frogs should we conduct any teachings via Skype. 🙁

Nonetheless, they’ve showed us that they have learned a lot!

It is always very pleasing to know that the kids can learn so much!

Another satisfaction from being a froggy guide:)

August 1, 2011

4th Day of SJ Trial – Osmanthus Royal Jelly with Ginseng

4th day of snow jelly trial and no pimples in sight despite my lousy eating habits these days! Great news!

Yesterday KY watsapped me as she was confused by my previous postings about the handling of the snow jelly. Would like to clarify here that the dried snow jelly itself is already cooked by heating and naturally preserved by drying. To use the snow jelly as a ready to use ingredient, you will have to soak the dried sj in water first overnight, boil it to sterilize this ingredient for at least 15 mins. You may break up the pieces into smaller morsels with a fork. Take note that sj is fully expanded when it is translucent and if your sj looks opaque, u r not using it to the full capacity!

KY n I also kinda concluded that the recipe on Day 2 probably works better with warm milk. She even offered another recipe with Almond paste which I’ll def experiment soon. as today is my off day I am quite reluctant to cook. So I’m offering this recipe which the product we are also selling at the farm. The inspiration of this recipe came after a visit to a friends Chinese restaurant which serves up jelly in champagne flutes! adding some collagen to it should be complimentary to both the taste n nutritional value!

Recipe:
1. Boil chrysanthemum flowers for 10 mins to 2.5L of water.
2. Sieve out the flowers n residues.
3. Add in Soaked Snow Jelly, wolf berries, red dates n ginseng to the boiling chrysanthemum tea. Put to boil for another 25 minutes

5. Lastly, add in 1 packet of Konnyaku jelly powder (some of these packaging comes with sugar in it! if not use the amount of sugar as recommended on the pakaging)

6. Off the fire when the mixture starts to boil. Continue stirring until the powder is completely dissolved in the mixture.
7. Pour it into the moulds when the concoction is less hot. The boiled Chrysanthemum flowers may be added into the moulds as edible garnish.
8. Serve chilled!

You can see how much ‘love’ goes into the making of this product. It is absolutely delicious!! However for some of you non-cooks out there, I would recommend visiting us at the farm n buying this cooked product from the Royal Frog Shop to get an instant fix!

July 31, 2011

3rd Day – Applicious Collagen Drink

Today is the 3rd Day of this trial and i’m ABSOLUTELY LOving it! I get to experiment with the past and present recipes and introducing them together with Hashima (Snow Jelly) as the key ingredient. Hashima is a neutral tasting ingredient thus it made most of my experiments so effortless! In fact today’s recipe is by far the one i enjoy best in terms of taste! Imagine slurping down the snow jelly with a soaked in apple flavour and fragrance…=P

Well, my friend asked me what i hope to achieve out of this 14 days trial. I guess it is a challenge to myself to churn out 14 different easy to prepare recipes and f.y.i. keeping to a regime has never been my forte. To maintain this for FOURTEEN DAYS??! I guess the cheap thrills are worth the effort!!

Besides the postings, the main motivation of working in the weekend must be the thought that everywhere else in the city must be really crowded and noisy. To be absolutely honest, being in the farm is my solace. Although today is actually the busiest day of the week for us at the farm but i actually do look forward to it; Simply because tmr’s OFF day!

Recipe:

1. Add 1 apple cut into cubes, red dates, 2 gms of soaked snow jelly, rock sugar and 1.5 cups of water into a small pot.

2. Put to a boil and continue cooking for 15 mins until an apple aroma is detected.

3. Serve warm or cold!ENJOY!!=)

July 30, 2011

2nd Day of Snow Jelly Trial – Snow Jelly, Osmanthus flowers with Milk

It’s only the 2nd day of my trial and i have 2 friends warning me about the cooling effects of Snow Jelly. i don’t know when the cough or ‘liang’ effect will hit me but if thats the only side effects i have to pay for a luminous, poreless, radiated skin.. without the eyebags.. i’m all ready for it…

Yes.. though i live in the farmlands, vanity persists out here too.

When i was doing the usual grocery shopping, i thought of the recipe ( i will share at the end of this post) which a beautiful HIGH flier real estate friend introduced. That is my dose of Snow Jelly on this 2nd day.

Did i also mentioned that i had a terrible back strain yesterday? I realised that straining the back can happen to anybody at any ages!*Please note that this is not spoken on a defensive tone* Good thing was after 3 application of the tiger balm patch, the pain wasn’t so acute anymore though. Am really praying hard for full recovery FAST… i wana get back on the TRACK. Literally.

Just as i thought that i could spend half a day resting by staying attached on my chair, 2 bus loads of church goers stopped & alighted at the Farm. There was absolutely no notice sent to us and obviously we were caught with limited manpower and preparation for these 90 people. Everyone was going for the free snow jelly sampling and the organiser started helping himself to the sampling pot and dishing out the sampling cups to the rest of the bus load.

Wow.. WELCOME TO THE FARM & PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME!!!

Oh well, those of you, snow jelly lovers out there, you have to try this very simple recipe.

150ml Cold Fresh Milk

4 tbsp soaked Snow Jelly

1 tsp osmanthus flowers

Put these together in a cup, stir well and serve cold! You will feel your skin gleaming after this serving of snow jelly milk! Enjoy!=)

July 29, 2011

14 days Royal Snow Jelly therapy starts today!

This blog started a couple of days ago. The idea was spurred by a fren who has many auntie colleagues who blog about their recipes, shop from other people’s blogs and the so many other people i know who will spend weekends reading people’s blogs and facebook updates.

As far as froggy guide and me are concerned, the lives we lead working (& living in my circumstances) is a far cry out there from most of you out there. We hope to document our daily activities and thoughts most coherently and vividly through this channel to you.

Oh well, i am going to start with a personal testimonial of a 14days of consuming our farm’s speciality Royal Snow Jelly. I will share this recipe with you at the end of the blog. I actually intentionally soak ~20 gms portion of our specially selected dried snow jelly (u.p. $16.50) it is indeed heartening to know that this portion serves up a good 14 portions (~200ml each portion) for my little experiment.

Why am i doing this experiment? Besides the constant reminder that 30 is not far away, it’s also the encouragement from a MONDAY FRIEND who had ever tried a brand of collagen essence and her colleagues could see the difference of her skin condition. OK WE will see at the end of this Trial!!

Recipe (Serves 14 bowls):

1. Soak 20gms of snow jelly overnight.

2. Smash up soaked snow jelly using a fork & drain out excess water.

3. In a separate pot, add in 2.5L fresh water, 250 gms of rock sugar, slices of po seng, red dates, wolfberry.

4. Boil for as long as 45 mins using low heat.

5. Serve warm or cold according to preference.

Tips! You may chill the remaining Royal snow Jelly in the fridge and eat it over the week!