cooking ideas: pizza

I've been baking a lot of pizza lately and it's led me to swear off delivery pizza forever. I doubt this decision will stick (delivery pizza, after all, is pretty much unbeatable on some occasions). But that's how good homemade pizza is. It's so much better and less oily than pizza that someone would bring to your door, and there's the benefit of getting to customize exactly what you want on it and in what amount. So, if at all possible, pizza I consume from here on out will be made by my hands.

My plan is to keep some pizza dough frozen at all times and stewed tomatoes stocked in the cupboard. If those two items are on hand, then it's just silly not to make a pizza.

Here's the basic idea:

Pizza dough (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

3 cups flour
2 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 to 1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Combine the yeast, flour, and salt, then add 1 cup of water and oil.
2. Mix, adding more water until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky.
3. Form into a smooth round ball. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise until it doubles in size (1-2 hours). At this point, I divide the dough into two pieces (one piece is enough for a medium pizza) and freeze them or bake one and freeze one as needed. If you freeze it, wrap it up tightly in plastic wrap.
4. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Oil a circular pan and spread the dough out. Spread more oil thinly on top of the dough.
5. Add tomato sauce (see below), toppings and cheese.
6. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes (or until the bottom of the crust is nice and brown).


Casual tomato sauce

1 can of stewed tomatoes
1 small onion
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
oregano, salt, pepper to taste
a spoonful of sugar
a bit of red wine (if available)
Tabasco sauce to taste (if available and enjoyable to you)
fresh basil (if available)
ground beef, browned in a separate skillet (if desired)

1. Sautee diced onion and garlic for a few minutes, then add other ingredients.
2. Simmer on stove -- the longer the better!

The pizza pictured above has meat sauce and four (that's right, four!) types of cheese that just happened to be on hand: ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and queso fresco. It was fantastic. And since all I had to do was defrost the dough, chop some veggies, boil the sauce and then throw the whole thing together, it took next to no time.

cooking ideas: cranberry nut bread

I made cranberry nut bread using this recipe yesterday. I added about a teaspoon of vanilla extract and maybe a quarter cup of honey. It was good, but not quite as moist as I had hoped. Hmm...

Next, I'm going to hunt down a recipe for olive and cheese bread, as per D.'s request.

mystery cat

Our cat caught her first mouse, and since then, she's changed.

She has a new demeanor. A sense of power and pride, of authority. I think this is some type of ritual every cat must experience, part of the change from kitten to cat. Our baby has grown up.

In other news, we have mice.

They live in our oven. Or under our oven. Somewhere near the oven where we can hear them squeaking and rummaging and (disgusting revelation alert) we can smell them when we bake. Yes, I use the oven. I will not let the mice win. But when I bake up my yummy breads (cranberry orange nut loaf yesterday, for example), the alluring smell of baking dough is tinged with the not too alluring smell of urine-infused mouse death. Not quite the odor I'm going for with this whole baking thing.

Our cat has started a nightly stakeout in front of the oven. If you sneak up on her and abruptly turn the lights on, sometimes you can catch her snoozing on the job, and she'll open up her eyes really big and look at you as if to say, "Me? Not sleeping! I'm hunting mice!" I've gotten so used to it that a few nights ago, I got kind of upset with her for slacking off when I woke up to find the kitchen tiles speckled with tiny brown pods of mouse poop. I approached her and accused of her of shirking her duties when D. admitted he'd locked her in the bedroom overnight (I think he misses her sleeping next to him). I felt bad that I had chastised the cat for not doing her job. Then I felt weird that I thought my cat had a job.

Well.

And, so, yes! She caught one. It was tiny and not entirely dead when D. found the cat sitting near it, watching it expectantly. Because I am a girl, I made him dispose of it. It was sad. The mouse was cute. It made me wonder why one four-legged furry creature is my precious angel (although, apparently, only when gainfully employed) and another one is a disgusting intruder that must be annihilated. The answer, of course, is that mice are gross. But I'm not entirely sure why.

D. disposed of the mouse but was pretty broken up about it. He returned dejected from the trash area downstairs where he laid the beast to rest in a spaghetti box.

Our cat still performs her daily vigils, sitting a little taller since her kill, more of a lion in her. There is a small hole in the woodwork near the oven that leads somewhere into the wall, behind the oven perhaps, or inside it. I don't know, but I know that it's a portal to the world of the mice. It's a tight squeeze for her, but she somehow manages to slink her way in and out, her hindquarters showing a bit of resistance as she shimmies them through.

She emerges with a gleam in her eye, her tail arched into a question mark. I don't ask what happens down in that hole, and she, being a cat, does not say.

cooking ideas: banana bread

I've always liked baking and cooking, but these days I've had an even greater appreciation for it. There is a very specific feeling of accomplishment when you make something with your hands, taking a diverse group of random things (powdery white dust, a few sticky yellow and white blobs, a puff of brown powder) and, in an hour or so, ending up with a very tangible, very delicious product that was not there before. Instant gratification (well, nearly).

This time I made banana bread. I used a recipe from Orangette (which was tough because she seems to have an infinite number of banana bread recipes and they all sound dazzling) and added walnuts. It's moist and nutty and perfect.

Even the cat liked it.

article: U.S.-Japan relations and the Japanese election

Here's a link to an article I wrote for the Nichi Bei Times:

http://www.nichibeitimes.com/?p=5092

Both Sen. Inouye and Amb. Fujisaki expressed concerns about the future of the relationship between Japan and the U.S. after the Japanese election later this month...

Something to watch!

cooking ideas: loco moco

Tonight I attempted a dish I've long loved: Loco Moco!

It's a Hawaiian dish (apparently), but I've only ever eaten it in Japan. I googled a recipe, but then went with my gut instinct, skipping the gravy, since I'm not a huge fan.

My LM consisted of a layer of rice, sprinkled with pieces of scallions and avocado, then layered with a hamburger and topped with a sunny-side up egg. I fluffed the outsides with tufts of salad leaves, and then swirled some mayonnaise (Kewpie, of course) and ketchup on top.

I tend to mash it all together when I eat it making an unattractive but extraordinarily tasty (and colorful!) mush that goes down like any yummy comfort food. D., a first time LM eater, approached the dish in what he described as a "more gentlemanly" way, but seemed to enjoy it just as much, so I guess there is something to be said for refinement.

I served pumpkin salad on the side, which is made by mashing potato and kabocha, adding onions, scallions, salt, pepper, soy sauce and a good amount of my dear friend Mr. Kewpie. This stuff is so yummy it makes my brain hurt.

cooking ideas: fish tacos

I've been using my days of unemployment to try and learn new things, reading books I've been intrigued by but haven't gotten around to picking up, watching countless Hayao Miyazaki films, taking long strolls, teaching myself HTML code... and, most awesome of all, doing more cooking.

I've always enjoyed cooking, but have, in recent days, been testing new recipes and flavor combinations, with quite pleasant results. Marinating beef in pineapple juice and soy sauce? It works. Substituting miso broth for chicken stock in risotto? Yum!

My favorite recent meal has been salmon soft tacos with homemade salsa. I'm not a stickler for following recipes, but here is my attempt to note the things that I randomly mixed together.

Salsa:
two tomatoes
an onion
the juice of two limes
garlic to taste (a lot, in my case)
scallions
cilantro to taste (again, a lot)
little Thai peppers cut up very small (not small enough sometimes, oops)
Tabasco to taste (some like it hot!)

Mix it all in a bowl and let this chill. Eat it after a couple of hours and wonder why you've not been doing so every day for your entire life.

Tacos:
Salmon
Cheddar cheese
Flour tortillas, soft taco size
Scallions
Avocado (yesss!)
Non-fat sour cream

Get some salmon, put a little salt and pepper on it, and grill it with the lid on. (I am not an expert at this and mine was too raw.) Put a couple of tortillas in your toaster oven until warm. Layer salmon wedges with avocado wedges and sprinkle with cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Add as much salsa as you can fit on top of all that without bursting it.

This is such a simple, healthy meal with so many lovely colors and flavors. You feel like you are being decadent without actually being too bad, which is a bonus.

This salsa is so fabulously delicious that I'm making it again tonight, only four days later. (And not only because I still have all the ingredients remaining and need to use them up!)

My next challenge will be homemade bread.

movie review: 500 days of summer

This is primarily a movie about love.
It is also a movie about the dangers of global warming.
Set in a harrowing version of the near future in which Earth has been ravaged to the extent that summer blisters for 500 days, followed by a single day of frigid winter (a premise I found, from the beginning, somewhat preposterous), a boy and a girl meet when they are stationed at the same Water Rationing Facility (WRF) for their mandatory two years of civil service.
The boy, Tom, immediately falls for the girl, Summer (this name is apparently a coincidence unintended by the writers of the film). She resists his advances, believing that any previously 'normal' attempts at romantic relationships are irrelevant and obsolete given the current climate. He attempts to win her over, presenting her with his own rations of water and government-issued SPF 350 sunblock (and, in depriving himself, grows increasingly tan and dehydrated).
She finally agrees to go out with him on the sole evening of winter. They are both bundled in multiple layers of Gortex, their bodies completely covered even indoors to combat the chilling blasts of below-zero wind that can penetrate walls. They huddle in front of a massive fire, staring at each other through fur-lined goggles and practically yelling to be heard through enormous earmuffs. Tom confesses his feelings at length, and Summer, finally deciding to enjoy her life despite its bitter conditions, admits she cares for him too.
They peel back their mouth coverings. Their lips, exposed to the cold, immediately blister and blanch blue, ice crystals crackling at the corners. As they press their dry, shivering mouths together, Tom slumps back on to the couch. He is dead. After sharing his water rations with Summer for weeks, he has finally succumbed to dehydration.
At this point, several people around me in the audience were sobbing. I, however, remained unmoved. Why should his dehydration overcome him at the exact moment of his first kiss? And, if Summer really cared for him, wouldn't she have noticed that he had grown weaker and increasingly absentminded and stopped accepting his rations? It all seemed a bit far-fetched and emotionally manipulative to me.
The heat returns the next day and a disconsolate Summer reports to the WRF. Apparently, there are always a lot of casualties on the only day of winter and, in addition to Tom, about 20 other staff members have also died (many people, especially the elderly, simply can't withstand the extreme change in climate or die of exposure, lacking sufficient shelter). The government has therefore assigned a new set of trainees to the facility, one of whom, Ben, is immediately attracted to Summer.
And it begins again.
This film is an interesting take on the traditional romantic comedy, for sure, but a little dark for my taste.