Project Heart

 A quick update before bed:

Some days, I just feel like a burnt bun.
Zzzz… better sleep.

Good night.

Furious didn’t have to work on Tuesday, so I sent him out to pick up a few things at Fresh from the Farm. When I get home from work that night, he announces with much excitement that he bought a a pork roast!

He then leaves for basketball, and asks me to find out how to cook the thing.

I open our trusty Mark Bittman book, “How to cook everything” and realize we don’t even have any garlic at home. I write a new list, and send Furious out again the next day, and we regroup the following night to deal with the roast. Since getting married, we’ve tackled all kinds of meats: roasting a whole chicken, we’ve done steaks, fish, now to tackle pig! … So here’s our first pork roast:

Furious actually did most of the work. So proud of him! Making a roast is  probably one of the simplest things in the world, but we had never done one before and it was fun to tackle a new meal together. … And the pork turned out great! (yeah, the meat looks red in the picture, but we were ok, no stomach aches)

We also did shrimp tacos this week with Lizano sauce–a tangy, curry sauce from Costa Rica

Ever since our trip to Italy, I’ve got into the habit of taking pictures of food wherever I go. Here are a  from last weekend to round off the “Triple-header weekend” (–as coined by Brian Q. : V-day/Chinese New Year/Family day).

After work last Friday night, Furious took me to a little French restaurant called ‘Amuse-Bouche’ at King & Tecumseth to celebrate Valentine’s day. By far, the best splurge dinner I’ve had in a long time–every course was satisfying. They even made beets taste good :)  Thank-you to my awesome husband for planning our dinner date!

We had a Yee-Lee hotpot dinner on Sunday night. The steam was so strong coming out of those pots that it kept covering half our shots. (The pict of Sophia and Lurgee is from Soph’s camera)

I admit I crave that fish filet at McD’s every so often, and that’s what I wanted for a quick lunch after church on Sunday. Luckily, we stopped in on highway 7 and found this Vietnamese restaurant. Nothing beats a good piping hot bowl of pho. (and nothing beats the price!) *Notice Furious is always on the phone?

A Chinese New year weekend isn’t complete without me grabbing jelly candy from my parent’s coffee table. (As part of tradition, my mom puts out CNY treats for visiting friends and relatives). Didn’t have any turnip cake this year, but we got this sweet cake (”goh”) called ‘Ma tai goh’ which I really like. (Furious not so much) However my all-time favourite Chinese New year’s “goh” is my grandmother’s. It’s a sweet light brown cake that she used to make that comes in layers. She called in “Cheen tsung goh” – meaning something like thousand layer cake. If only one of the aunts could remember the recipe…

After a long afternoon nap on Family day, I couldnt’ fall asleep at night and found myself nibbling away at the chocolate bacon that Big Sue brought back for us from NYC.  I already like the packaging, who knew I’d literally find chocolate covered bacon (it’s shaped like bacon!) in this little wrapped up package.  Mmmmmm……

More food to come. THIS week….

To my loyal 2.5 readers,

In our family’s effort towards world domination, the youngest sisters in the Yee and Lee clan have united to form My Little Sweatshop.

Thank-you for your attention.

… And here’s a taste of the stuff they make:

What are we doing lately?

-  Furious finished training at end of January and started his regular shift work. He’s doing call-taking right now while his other role as dispatcher would be to send out the trucks and liaison with them during the course of a call.

- On his days off (he gets 4 to 5 days off in between shifts), he carrys on his reigning title as Leisure Suit Larry.

- Finally got a much needed haircut, but it just hasn’t been feeling right… 2 weeks later, I’m settling into it a bit better now.

- Planning some small weekend trips for March: Ottawa + NYC! (well not together…)

- RSVP’d for my cousin Jamie’s wedding in California in May

- Real estate listings started picking up again after a holiday lull. The market is still really hot and competition is stiff. We’ve seen quite a few houses lately, but no luck still with finding a place. On the otherhand, congrats to Sophia for getting the keys to her brand new pad – a really nice loft in Leslieville!

- Late nights with work and just getting things done have left me pretty tired over the last few weeks. On top of that, work just seems all around messy these days, but I’m still thankful for work and the fact that it gives me (the undisciplined procrastinator) a needed structure and routine–for real!

- Back to the tiredness part. I look more like this:

But it’s a ‘long weekend over here–time to catch up on sleep!