Homemade Pizza

A while back, Jeremy and I attempted to make homemade pizza- everything from scratch!  We had received a pizza stone as one of our gifts as well as a bread machine.  Paired with Jeremy's obsession with pizza, it only made sense we would try it!

We made honey whole wheat pizza dough, topped it with some tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and veggies on my side.  Jeremy's complaint was no pepperoni which we adjusted for our second attempt a few weeks later. I highly enjoyed my pizza. The dough was very wheat-y, which I actually liked and Jeremy was okay with as well.  The dough was a little thicker than I think it should have been, but these are all learning opportunities!  I'm glad I loaded up my side with veggies because it added so much flavor and depth to the wheat-y pizza.  Maybe Jeremy is a purist in wanting the taste of cheese alone (except when pepperoni is available)... but I always tell him to eat more veggies.

The only sad thing was that the pizza stuck to the pizza stone depsite the oil and sprinkled cornmeal.  It may have been because I tried to stretch out the door further on the stone so again, a learning point!  We will definitely need to keep trying to "perfect" our homemade pizza!

Ocean Blue Sushi for Sie Deen's Bday!

April 24th was Sie Deen's birthday! To celebrate, we went to Ocean Blue Sushi Club in Sunnyvale. It was Sie Deen and James, and Jeremy and I.  None of us had ever been there before, but as soon as we walked in, all of were amazed at how nice or "posh" the place looked.  It looked like quite a fancy and modern restaurant, not the usual Japanese home-y restaurant.  The price, though it was higher than usual, was thankfully was not at the level of how the place looked.

I got the sushi plate #2 with 8 pieces of nigiri and california rolls.  It also came with salad and miso soup. I must say I'm not a huge dressing fan, but the sesame dressing on the salad was delicious! It tasted a tad peanut-y to me, but I may have been completely imagining it.  As for nigiri, I was surprised at how large the slices of fish were.  It was draped beautifully over the rice with room to spare so that the fish was longer and wider than the rice. Yummm... oh how I heart sushi! There was maguri, salmon, hamachi, ebi, ika, hirame, a special white tuna, and a different salmon like fresh fish.  My only complaint would be that there was a little too much wasabi already on each nigiri for my liking.  The fish was very fresh and we loved the presentation. Notice the special white tuna with the gold flakes! I like controlling how much wasabi I consume with mu sushi and don't like needing to wince from the strength of the wasabi already on there.  I also do like sushi restaurants that use freshly grated wasabi which is actually NOT that strong but flavorful! I think the waitress may have been looking at me weird since I ate half the nigiri and left half for Jeremy, so he could try all the different kinds too! Hey, can't blame a girl from trying to turn her husband Japanese :)

Jeremy ended up getting tonkatsu which is one of his favorites.  At a different sushi place, he really likes the katsu curry.  He said that the katsu here wasn't as good as the Sushi Maru one.  However, it may be because of the lack of curry... who knows. The picture is a bit blurry but you can see there was quite a bit of katsu.  It was crisp and soft, so I thought it was well cooked.  It's not pictured here because we forgot to take pictures of the spider roll that came later.  It was delicious with the soft shell crab still hot from the fryer, with avocado and cucumber.  The only thing was there was a bit too much sauce for my liking.  It made the rice fall apart which made it a bit more difficult to eat but fun to watch someone else try!

James had read on Yelp when he was looking at this place that the Firecracker roll was their specialty, and everyone raved about it.  We had wondered what the difference was in the specialty rolls versus the regular rolls (without pretty pictures on the menu).  We soon discovered the specialty rolls not only had a few added ingredients, but they're HUGE.  The regular roll came with 4 regular roll sized pieces.  The specialty ones came with 8 LARGE rolls. Sie Deen really enjoyed her roll though- quite spicy as she likes it! I didn't try it but I'm not sure if I could handle the heat being the weak sauce person I am when it comes to spicy food...

Overall, we had a fantastic meal and I was very satisfied with the food as well as the service.  They DID run out of Aji which is my favorite fish for nigiri, so I couldn't substitute one of my nigiris for it.  If they had aji, who KNOWS how much I would rave about it!

By Th' Bucket Santa Clara

For the last day of one of my coworkers, our group went out to lunch at By Th' Bucket in Santa Clara. I had driven by it many times before, and by the sound of it, it sounds like fried chicken! However, they actually have all sorts of stuff from seafood to burgers, pastas to sandwiches... the list could go on. Everything that people ordered looked amazing. Some of the things ordered were a crab cake sandwich, burgers, and some other hot sandwiches. I ended up ordering the pasta & salad combo... my attempt to be healthy and diverse!

I got the pesto chicken fettucine with the tomato mozzarella salad. It was good, but I think it was hyped up much more in my head than what I actually ate. The salad was like a caprese salad (which I love) with greens and avocados (which I love) so the salad was great. I wish that they had given me more salad though! The pasta was actually a creamy pesto. I am actually not a huge creamy sauce fan to begin with, so I was disappointed that I didn't read that part clearly. Obviously if I'm expecting regular pesto and get a creamy pesto, it is going to start me on the wrong path... I think it also could have used a little more flavor, but again I am quite critical!

Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed their food, so I think I'll try either seafood (which seems to be a specialty of theirs) or a sandwich, since those looked amazing! I'm definitely willing to try again!

Easter @ Yosemite and Bunny Cake!

Growing up, my family didn't have many Easter traditions. It definitely was not a huge holiday in my house, and it did not mean as much then as it does to me now that I understand what the day really signifies. It's usually a good season... or at least a week/day for me to reflect and truly appreciate the sacrifices that have been made for me. Of course from there, realizing how blessed I am.

Prior to Easter, I was able to participate in a fantastic tradition with our fantastic friends. Apparently Jen's bunny cake is an annual Easter tradition that has been going on. I was finally able to experience and enjoy dinner and bunny cake with our friends :) It's marvelous how two round cakes and jelly beans can turn into an awesome bunny cake!
Jeremy's tradition has been Cadbury Creme Eggs which I didn't get him, but he got some other candy... as long as he gets candy he is happy! I also ended up getting him a creme egg (not Cadbury) after Easter and he enjoyed that greatly.

This year for Easter we went to Yosemite with our friends and it was a great time of being out in nature, God's creation, and really be able to enjoy the outdoors. It was my first time in Yosemite and it was an absolutely beautiful weekend... during the day. It got VERY cold at night and there was quite a bit of layering and shivering that happened... I think we were a bit ill prepared and it didn't help that the fire didn't start because the wood was damp. We survived, still enjoyed each other's company (thanks to the Ls), and ate very well so no complaints there! It's an annual Yosemite camping trip that again was a first to me! A lot of firsts for me this Easter which is great.

Good friends, good food, good times- can't ask for much more than that in life!