Seah's Herbal Chicken Soup

Soup! Most reader of this blog knows that I can't do without Soup and I love to boil soup. I believed a bowl of hot and comfort soup will make a great different for rainy days meal or even to revive your soul from tiring days at work. Chicken soup is always the best and comfort soup found in every home whereby you can see almost all the mothers will boil chicken essence/soup to strength our body and soul during our school time or staying up late at nights.

White Fungus - 雪耳 nourishes the Kidney, invigorates the Qi and benefits the Blood. It is also rich in iron, vitamin C, calcium and phosphorous. Its elastic protein and fibres also ease constipation, lower blood pressure and nourish the skin effectively.

As you have read from my posts, I have tried Seah's Bak Kuet Teh herb pack in one of my post a few months back. (click Here) To me, I feel that their quick and easy pre-packed herbs pack do easy the trouble of whipping out homecook soup in a easier way. Today I am going to share with you another type of their Soup Pack which is known as "Herbal Chicken Soup Spices" that will enable you to have comfort soup without storing up your pantry with different types of Chinese herbs.

Ingredients: (serves 3 - 4)
1 Packet of Seah's Herbal Chicken Soup Spices
3 Chicken Drumsticks
1 Small Can of Button Mushroom
1 Cluster of White Fungus
6 Red Dates
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries
1.2 Litre Boiling Water

Method:
1. Rinse and soaked the white fungus in warm water for about 10 - 15 minutes till soften, trim off the bottom stem and take only the soft portion. Rinse and let it soaked in water for another 15 minutes or so before cooking.
2. Clean and trim the fat of the chicken drumstick, blanched in boiling water, rinse and set aside.
3. Bring 1.2 Litres of water to boil, add in all the ingredients, except wolfberries. When the mixture comes to boil again, let it simmer for another 5 minutes before transfer it to the Slow-cooker and let it cook for at least 2 to 3 hrs on AUTO till the white fungus soften. OR
Alternatively you can simmer it on the stove for at least 45 minutes on medium low heat.
4. Serve hot with steam rice.


So you see with only 4 steps, anyone can whip up a pot of homecook chicken soup at anytime of the day. Just put everything into the slow-cooker, set the timer and within a few hours, you can enjoy a bowl of hearty comfort soup with your love one/family at home.

Sakae Tenno Gozen

Last week, we have ordered this "Tenno Gozen" set from Sakae Sushi as the main course for our weekend dinner. We choose this because of it great varieties of items in it such as Lobster Tofu, Tempura Moriawase, Mini Udon, Sakae Chawanmushi and Beef Hotplate. This set is great to satisfy our family preference where each of us gets to eat what we like this bento set. For starter we can have the Lobster Tofu which is light and refreshing or you might prefer the Sakae Chawanmushi which is slight warm and silky to taste. After the appetiser, you can either start off with the beef hotplate or have your mini udon with the tempura moriawase.

Crispy Salmon Skin @ S$3.99 is a new item on the list that we have not try since it launch in March. So today when we saw it roll towards our table on the sushi belt, we decided to pick a plate up as our starter before our Tenno Gozen is served. These strips are very crispy and tasty which makes it very addicting when munching as snacks.

While munching the above crispy samlon strips we also grab a plate of "Unagi Tama Maki" whereby you can see a thick layer of Unagi on top of the egg maki roll. Em.... yum yum....

After about 15 minutes or so, our Tenno Gozen bento arrived with 5 individual items in the set. For starter we can have the Lobster Tofu which is light and refreshing(this item can be found in the A-la-Carte menu for $3.99) or you might prefer the Sakae Chawanmushi which is slight warm and silky to taste. After the appetiser, you can either start off with the beef hotplate or have your mini udon with the tempura moriawase.

The Beef Hotplate is served in a shallow metal plate with broth, assorted vegetables and mushroom which add extra flavour to the beef. The plate of beef seems to be quite a big serving which you might need to cook it in two batches instead of one so that the texture of the beef will be tender and not overcooked.

HSBC Tree Top Walk

Talking about Nature Reserves in Singapore, I am sure you have heard of "Bukit Timah Nature Reserves", "Dairy Farm Nature Reserves", "MacRitchie Reservoir" and etc. In this post, I am going to share with you the "HSBC Tree Top Walk" which consists of several long hiking routes in MacRitchie that brings you through different stages of mature secondary forest.

The distance to the entrance of the TreeTop Walk is approximately 2.5 km which is around 45 minutes to an hour walk from the car park at Venus Drive, off Upper Thomson Road. There is also a parking lot conveniently situated at that area.

Along the route, we saw a lot of interesting plants and trees that interests our little darling. To me this is a very good outdoor experience for kids to learn "plants & animals" in real life example rather than from books. For example, my darling can spot the "Giant" Yam plant and Pandan Leaves, can you?

Along the walk, you will see a number of these signboard above showing you the distance between the current position and the Tree Top Walk. To us it seems to be like a motivation "sign" telling us we are just 1500 metres, 1000 metres or 500 metres to our destination.

For those requiring toilets, there is a Rangers Station in the middle of the walk for you to take a rest and use the toilets. But there is no shop selling water or food there, instead there is a water fountain which you can re-fill your empty bottles.

Before approaching the entrance of the Tree Top Walk, you have to walk past a long staircase walkway in order to reach the wood hut. When Rey saw the walkway he almost give up the thought of going down. Because after you walk past the bridge, you have to take the "up" staircase back from another route.

Upon reaching the Tree Top Bridge, all visitors will to pass through a wooden hut with a big sign in front saying "HSBC Tree Top Walk". From here all hikers have to go in single file onto the bridge, and everyone can only move forward and not back.

At 25 metres above the ground, this bridge is only about 250 metres long, so enjoy your view up there while walking through it. It is pretty narrow, so they only allow maximum of 30 person to be on the bridge at the same time.

The walk on the bridge offers you a magnificent bird's eye view of the plants and animals that live in the canopy. At your very eye level you will get to see the lively high life of the forest.

After enjoying the magnificent view from the bridge, it time to strength up and start heading back to the starting point. From the map shown, there is no short-cut to go back to Venus Drive, so we have to take another 2.5 km walk back in order to reach the car park.

Luckily along the way, there are still some interesting sight, plants and insect that capture our attention or else I guess Rey will not have the strength to finished the whole hiking trip. Tree Top Walk opens Tuesdays to Fridays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm; Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays from 8.30 am to 5:00 pm. The Walk is closed on Mondays (unless it happens to be a Public Holiday) for maintenance and research purposes.