The Little Bl... Zebra Dress!

Leopard is out and... Zebra is in! This is what I wore on a date night out this weekend. My little zebra dress! The material is perfect for this weather - light and soft, it feels almost like nothing. I also love the design of the dress, it's very flattering on the body and makes me look curvier than I am, which is always a plus ;) The bag is great because I carry so much stuff with me: make up, brush, water bottle (a must in the heat), phone, wallet, tissue (another must)...

That's all I wanted to say, but hey, do you always need to have such an important thing on your mind?! :)

PS. There's a CONTEST coming up! And my readers have a chance to win great prices! Keep posted ;)

Dress: Awear   Bag: Giudit   Shoes: Aldo

X Ang Moh Chick

Spinach Pancakes and Cranberry Jam

Yes you heard correct - pancakes can well be savoury! Spinach pancakes is a common dish at Finnish schools where the food is free from primary school all the way until university where is's government subsidised. 

Food is not only one of the most important joys of life, it's a way to gain energy for the body and the brains, share love, try something new and of course most importantly enjoy the taste of life! For me even food can look pretty and visually appealing. Presenting food in a nice way makes it taste much better ;) Moreover, food is a great way to bring back memories. I felt like having something Finnish and eating these pancakes brought me back to my school days!

These spinach pancakes are packed with iron and good carbs to give you strength for the challenges of the day. First you need to prepare the sweet&bitter cranberry jam. 

Mix 3 tablespoons of chia seeds with 1 dl of water. Place in the fridge for about 15 minutes or until the seeds have 'jellified'. Mix the jelly with a handful of grated cranberries, or alternatively use a blender. Add in honey to taste, about 2-4 tablespoons depending on how sweet you want your jam to be. Place the ready jam in the fridge to wait.

Here is what you need for the pancakes:

• 1 cup white quinoa + 2 cups water
• 1.5 cups grated pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• a large handful of spinach
• 1.5-2 cups rolled oats
• fresh or coarsed parsley, black pepper, salt to taste
• butter or oil for frying

First cook the quinoa in 2 cups of lightly salted boiling water for about 15 minutes. Set aside to cool. Pulse the pumpkin in a blender and then add rest of the ingredients. If you don't own a blender, grate the pumpkin and spinach until fine, then mix with other ingredients. The mixture should be thick enough to be shaped into patties. If it's not thick enough, add more oats.

Place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes. Heat the oil or butter in a large pan, adding enough so that the patties will not stick to the pan. Form the mixture into pancakes in your hands and fry about 4 pancakes at a time. Fry for about 3 minutes per side.

Enjoy with your homemade cranberry jam!

Sidenote: After happily eating my pancakes I noticed that my quinoa package is full of tiny tiny Singapore ants running around. Lovely. Should have named the post 'Spinach Pancakes with an Anty Crunch'. 

X Ang Moh Chick

A Singaporean Wedding

Last weekend we were invited to a friend's wedding at the Raffles Marina, which is just a step away from Malaysia. There is a huge bridge next to the country club where the wedding was held that leads to Malaysia! Singapore is such a small country after all...

The happy couple had already got officially married a couple of weeks before in Thailand where the bride is from. However, it's common to arrange a wedding with a full ceremony in both parties' home countries. So I wonder when is our second wedding going to be then....... ;)

The wedding was quite "small" - about 100 guests - which isn't small in the Finnish scale but it is in the Singaporean one! I've been to a thousand-guest wedding and I must say that I prefer a smaller one much more. It's more intimate and somehow more meaningful. The couple has time to talk to people and enjoy their wedding dinner instead of rushing from table to table to say hi to all colleagues' cousins ;)

What I love about the Singaporean weddings is how genuinely cute they are in celebrating the couples' happiness. Traditions are mixed with the couple's own photos and ideas. The ceremony itself is very much like the Western one with "I do's" and rings but there are a couple of funny traditions that I always find intriguing. I will explain them below with lots of pictures!

At first,we were waiting for the newly weds at the harbour.

The couple arrived on a boat. This was a very unique and surprising idea! The land behind is Malaysia.

Next we moved on to the ceremony room where the vows and the exchange of rings took place. I loved the seat names!! ;)

As a wedding gift, all guests give money. It's always wrapped in a red envelope and called 'ang bao', meaning a red packet. It is supposed to bring good luck and blessings to the couple, as red is a luckly color and the sum inside always ends with 8 - a lucky number. 

After the simple but beautiful ceremony we moved on to the main hall for dinner. The couple had decorated all of the spaces with love themed photos hanging from balloons. Cute! :)

Chinese weddings always have a similar type of menu - it's an eight course meal (8 again!) where each course represents good luck, fortune, longetivity and happiness together in different symbolic ways. Dishes are presented in the same order as in the menu:

So you can imagine that it takes quite a while for the waiters to bring the food to each table, clear them, bring the next dish... Even in a "small" 100-guest wedding!

As you probably noticed, the dessert is not a wedding cake. In fact, Singaporean weddings do have a cake - just not for eating! It's only a show piece. After the dinner the guests raise a glass for the couple, the closest family in front with the couple. And everyone screams their hearts out for three times; first for a happy marriage, second for many children and third for everyone's good health!

 

In Singaporean weddings, the bride always changes her outfit in the middle of the dinner. First is the walk in with the (usually white) wedding gown, and then it's time for something more comfortable and bright in color.

A beautiful wedding and clearly a very happy couple! Congratulations again Kelvin&Faa!


Dress: Asos   Bag: GG5   Shoes: Country Road   Earrings: Chanel


X Ang Moh Chick