homemade pizza

I heart pizza. I am always in the mood to eat pizza. One night, jwoo decided that he wanted to make pizza. At Trader Joe's, they have fresh pizza dough in the refrigerated section, and I was always curious how it tasted and worked. I am used to using the Pillsbury kind, which is totally fine. But alas, the chance came to try it! I'd say our pizza was definitely Trader Joe-d out. :]
This was their pizza dough. They ran out of the normal kind so this is the whole wheat. I used a mixture of corn meal and flour to help it not stick. You need to allow the dough to rest outside of the package for 15 minutes or something.
These were our ingredients. Trader Joe's everything: sausage, pizza sauce, mushroom, cheese. For our sausage we had a mixture of the Sweet Italian pork and chicken sausage (Personally the pork tastes better, but I'm a fatty). There's no real recipe that I followed, it was kinda just winging it and according to your taste, but I will try my best have a logical and methodical way...
So this is all the onions, sausage, and mushroom (and garlic but you can't see it) that was chopped up. You can adjust the amount of stuff you want, depending on how meaty or oniony or mushroomy you like. I think I used 3 sausages, a hand full of mushrooms, a little less than half an onion, and 2-3 cloves of garlic.
Saute all that goodness together with a drizzle of olive oil, not too much because the sausage has fat in it. Cook until all are browned. Set aside.
Roll out the dough. Actually, we kinda just pushed it out very gently and tried to make it as even as possible. Since I didn't have a pizza stone, we made it rectangular which has a nice look to it, right?
We spread the canned pizza sauce on. I used about half a jar of it. Spread it so that it covers most of the pizza except about an inch from the border. Depending on how sauce-y you like your pizzas, you can put more.
Cover the pizza with the toppings that were set aside.
Sprinkle cheese on the pizza covering most of the pizza. I used a mix of Swiss and Gruyere because I like it, but you can use mostly any cheese that you like.
Your oven should be at 400°F. After preheated, put your pizza in for about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it. When the cheese is nicely melted and the edges are browned, take the pizza out of the oven. I'd say, wait for it to cool a little, but I couldn't resist.
Mmmm, so yummy and easy! The whole wheat pizza dough made it seem healthier and is pretty good, though I still prefer normal pizza dough. Next time, I'd probably put more toppings, but this was very satisfying.

You can make pizza any way you like it, barbecue pizza, with chicken, bell peppers, anything! Even anything you have on hand, it'll be delicious.

muracci's japanese curry & grill

Have you had Japanese curry before? It's delicious and really simple to make, because all the spices come prepackaged in a box! However, when Jess (J on this blog!) told us about this place that makes curry from scratch in the city (SF), we knew we had to try.

We went to visit Harmonious for lunch one day and on Jess's recommendation, we ate at Muracci's. This hole in the wall is unassuming, one in a whole street of restaurants catering to the employees in the bustling SF financial district.

It was so crowded. I was prepared (thanks Yelp!), so N ran to claim one of the few tables in the place. I think it seats maybe 10 people overall? We shared a mild chicken katsu (deep fried chicken cutlet) curry.
The curry comes separately in a plastic container, so as to not render the fried katsu soggy.

Ta-da! The cutlets were fried perfectly, with thick cuts of chicken and good amount of breading.

The star is definitely the curry. Their menu boasts, simmered for two days straight with vegetables and spices. And it certainly tastes that way! The spices kind of creep up on you and build in your mouth with each bite. If you've never had curry made from scratch, you definitely should. I don't know if I can go back to boxed curry as delicious as it is.

N went back with J Woo and they got chicken kara-age, which she'll tell you all about!

This is their chicken kara-age. This was really good, though I thought the chicken was a bit over fried, but still very yummy. The lunch set comes with miso soup, potato salad, and salad, so it was very filling and good.
Murracci's Japanese Curry & Grill

http://www.muraccis.com/

San Francisco, Financial District
307 Kearny Street CA 94108-3204

My Love Affair with Jam

I have a confession. I love Jam. Granted, this is a new found love, but all I've had on my mind for the past few days is Jam. Eating jam, researching jam, making jam, tasting new jam, thinking a wonderful flavor combinations for different jams, wondering how many different ways I could eat jam. And it is all because of this simple little jar of blenheim apricot jam from We Love Jam:

Up until last weekend, I've never bought any kind of jam other than Smucker's strawberry. It's relatively cheap and the stuff I grew up on; why would I ever need anything else? And why would I ever want to spend more than $4 on a jar of jam?

Three words: Dorie Greenspan's Jammers (but that's a post for another day).

In any case, We Love Jam's blenheim apricot jam is simply sublime. It has the most intense, perfectly sweet apricot flavor without any artificial flavors, a silky smooth texture, and is perfect for just about anything - toast, cookies, croissants, crackers, and pretty much anything you'd ever want to put jam on. From the first moment I tasted it, I was totally and completely in love and I wanted to eat it by the spoonful. This jam is so undeniably superior to any other store bought jam I've ever had, I cannot imagine ever going back to that other stuff. And now, I am quivering in anticipation just hoping that I will also get to taste their mariposa plum and feijoa sometime soon. My heart is already melting. :D

Do you have any favorite jams? Are there any other ones I should try and fall in love with as well?

sumiya part 2

When D saw my last post, he demanded to see the other pictures.

"What other pictures?"

"You know...from the other time we went!"

He then proceeded to email me said pictures.

I'm glad he did, because this time, we didn't just do meat dishes.

Exhibit #1: Bacon wrapped mushrooms

This... yeah. I'm speechless. The bacon was perfectly crisp and had a wonderful smokey, salty flavor that blended really well with the chewy, soft mushroom. A must get. Seriously.

Exhibit #2: Hamachi

This was grilled yellowtail. It was good too, and the negi (green onions) and masago (salmon roe) were a nice touch.

Exhibit #3: Nasu (eggplant)

I loved this too. Eggplant, a lot of times, absorbs too much of the oil that it's cooked in, but this was perfect. Soft and delicate, it melted in your mouth without the heaviness of oil. It was topped with bonito and a light soy sauce. Yum!

And now, the obligatory meat dishes:

I don't remember what the first one was...though I'm sure it was very good. The darker meat is kalbi (beef short rib) and the back skewer was chicken with ume (plum) sauce. I didn't like the flavor of the ume very much, but I'm sure for those who do, it would've been delicious.

Verdict? If you're not salivating by now, I don't know what kind of food you eat. But please consider bringing me along.

sumiya yakitori

I love Japanese food. It always feels so clean and fresh and best of all, delicious! Even when you eat something like yakitori, or (loosely) grilled skewers, it never feels heavy at all.

D took me to this place in Santa Clara called Sumiya, a restaurant that specializes in yakitori. The restaurant itself is quite small, and very popular. We managed to get 7pm reservations (I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did!), and we were pretty much right next to the diners adjacent to us on both sides.



I've had yakitori before, but not as a full blown meal, so D did most of the ordering. We ordered pork belly, chicken with yuzu sauce, and a yakitori donburi. (A donburi is, loosely, a rice bowl.)

Both meats were tender and well seasoned. The pork belly can be a bit much for people because it's so fatty, and I have to say, I was glad it was the only "fatty" thing we got. I'm not sure if I could've handled more, as delicious as it was. It's how I feel about bacon. Delicious, but can be much. The sauce on the chicken was unexpected; I'm not sure if I liked it, but it was good.

The highlight was definitely the donburi. It came with a wonderful, chilled poached egg that lended a creaminess to the skewers and rice... I'm salivating just thinking about it! So, so good. Eggs are amazing.

We finished off the meal with a dessert--green tea creme brulee. Yes, more eggs. I love custard, and this was light and creamy with a hint of bitterness from the green tea. It was gone in seconds.

Isn't the raspberry on the side so cute?

If you're in the South Bay, definitely check it out--but get reservations early! It's almost impossible to walk in. Also, it can get pricey! Skewers range from $3 to $12 dollars depending on what and how many you get. There's a wide variety of food, from vegetables, to meat, to seafood. They're all really, really good, so if you want to try them all, bring lots of money!

Sumiya Yakitori
2634 Homestead Rd
Santa Clara, California
http://www.sumiyakitori.com/