Foo Yong Hai with Mushroom Sausage Red Sauce

On a lazy Sunday with last minute buck up, hubby cooked this mouth-watering meal. An hour earlier, I had made myself a bread and ham with cheese and salad sandwich. It was 11.45 am when I made my brunch. Hubby was still asleep. Now he is full of energy and wanted to make an omelette with bread for lunch. He asked me if I wanted to eat as well. I thought…mmm…well, this could be my lunch. After all, I just had bread. Another piece of bread won’t hurt, no?

I was busy occupying myself with the Wii Sports Resort playing parachuting, ping-pong and wake-boarding. I smelt a tangy aroma in the air. Our kitchen and living room is not separated, and technically hubby is only a few meters away from me but we were both engrossed in our own thing. I even hit the standing lamp with the remote control.

"Ouch!" I said.

Dutch champignon mushrooms as toppings for the foo yong hai.

The whole dish with fresh garden salad.

It's a hearty meal on bread and quite light as well.

Hubby turned to his ever clumsy wife from lots of steam boiling over in the pot. 

"Are you alright?" He asked me. 

"Yes." I said.  

Then I was enlightened by the tangy smell from the pot. 

I paused the Wii, and turned to look at hubby’s cooking. It was delicious. It was not the omelette and bread that I expected!

Hubby said that he wanted to make a more elaborate lunch so he came out with this recipe. The red sauce is garlic chilli sauce.

We had a good meal. In fact this meal could also go with rice or noodles. It tasted good, and the delicate presentation which hubby did scored plus points with me.

He is a creative cook, now wanting to cook oliebollen for the entire family and relatives for Chinese New Year. I grudgingly gave him my support. To my surprise, he wanted to make 80 oliebollen on the first day of Chinese New Year and he needed me as assistant chef. He would not do less. He said more is better than less, especially for Chinese New Year. He said, assuming we had two stoves, we could each deep fry forty balls side by side…

I was like…oh no…I don’t want to cook and get oily during Chinese New Year. But of course, dear hubby, I will cook alongside with you. Start Chinese New Year with lots of oil for a smooth ride to last the whole year long! Now I wonder if there is any Chinese proverb with the word “yu” or oil in it. Oh yes, “jia yu” (literally translated as add oil) means to buck up, increase effort and not to give up.

We will do so. We will “jia yu” this Chinese New Year, literally and figuratively!