Pizza lesson

March 4, 2025 2:21 PM

My friend had noticed that I kept having pizza fails, and they offered to give me a pizza lesson! Really, it was just me watching them make some pizza, but it was so good. They made a whole bunch of pizza dough a few days in advance, and my sister told me that that's really legit to make your own dough and make it days in advance.

They mentioned that a Detroit-style pizza would probably work best in a home oven, so we had a couple of these. I don't have the same special pan that they have, but I have a cast iron pan and I also have some metal baking pans, so I think I could try this on my own!

I don't know if I had ever actually had a Detroit-style pizza before, but this was really good! Definitely on the heavier side, but I don't care, it's pizza. And I love pizza with cheese on bottom and sauce on top.

Since they had so much dough, they also made a bunch of Neopolitan style pizzas, with a really fancy backyard pizza oven!

It was really cool to see the pizza cooking in the oven in real time. I know I can't replicate this at home (my friend said they tried to make this style of pizza in a home oven many times in the past, but you really need much high temps and home ovens just won't get that hot), but I guess one of the things I learned was that you should cook your pizza as hot as you possibly can.

But because I was scared of too many new variables at once, I did not take that advice when I made my own pizza yesterday 😅 But I did buy a new pizza pan! I wasn't really going to do that, but someone in the Aldi Aisle of Shame Facebook group mentioned that this pan was "too non-stick" and that their pizza fell right off the pan! And the pan was only $3 so I was sold! I walked the extra ten minutes to the slightly further away Aldi just to buy it.

My friend also told me that cornmeal works well to prevent the pizza from sticking, so I bought some of that too. And I ended up making some strawberry pizza! I had been wanting to make strawberry pizza for a while, but every time I mention it to other people they're like "Wait...strawberries on a pizza? I don't know about that 🤨" I don't understand the skepticism. When I first saw the idea of a strawberry pizza, I thought, that sounds amazing. Nothing weird about it at all.

So I went to Aldi a couple of days ago to buy my dough, but all they had was jalapeño dough, and I'll admit, now the pizza is sounding a little weird to me. But whatever, it's all they had, so I bought it.

I didn't quite follow the original recipe, but I ended up topping my pizza with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, strawberries, bacon, basil, leftover marinated tomatoes from when I made some bruschetta, leftover diced (and sautéed with garlic) sweet onions from the taco night, and leftover balsamic vinaigrette from some salad last week.

And it ended up being delicious. (Of course it was, because strawberry pizza is always delicious) The dough definitely was jalapeño-y, but it wasn't spicy. I don't think I'd ever choose the flavored dough if the regular one was in stock, but it worked fine enough.

And to make things even better, my pizza didn't stick! Honestly, I think it would have been fine without the cornmeal and just a little bit of flour on the bottom. I really think the new pan did all the work to make it not stick.

I definitely want to keep making more pizza. Maybe I'll try Detroit-style next.

I'm still cooking

September 4, 2022 7:44 PM

It's hard for me to have two active projects at once. I started my Teochew site in 2018, then took a break from it and started my food blog in 2019. Now that I'm working on the Teochew site again, it's hard for me to find the energy to devote to the food blog. But I did take a few pictures, so I wanted to share some of the things I cooked (or helped cook) over the past couple of weeks.

Bao wasn't the only exciting food I helped make while I visited my grandma's. We made fresh spring rolls every day for "pre-dinner snack". It seemed a little excessive, but it was delicious.

I need to figure out how my aunt prepared that pork. It was SO GOOD. On the first day, I just ate three spring rolls, but by the last day, I was eating five, which is more than I what I eat for a meal sometimes. It's okay. It's healthy.

When I got back, I made some strawberry pizza. (I actually made it twice!) My sister and I made this pizza way back when I first started the food blog, and it was one of my favorite recipes that we tried. I think it tasted good, but not as amazing as when I had it with my sister. On my second attempt, I added goat cheese, and I think that was a good addition.

Every other week, I have a "co-working day" with my friend, and after work we pick a dish to cook together. This week we made chicken tikka masala and a roasted eggplant salad. It was all very good, but my friend ended up replacing 1.5 teaspoons of chili powder with 2 teaspoons of ground red pepper in the tikka masala, and it was way too much heat for me. I usually only stick to 1/4 teaspoon if I add any hot pepper 🥵

Finally, my boyfriend requested some poke, and while I didn't have any sashimi grade fish on me, I did have half a pound of frozen shrimp. I cooked that and grabbed whatever poke appropriate ingredients I had for toppings. Poke is great because apart from the fish, I really don't have to plan for it at all. I always have poke ingredients in my kitchen.

A surprising strawberry smoothie and a break from the blog

May 8, 2021 11:05 AM

Foods that I didn't care for when I started this blog, but have grown to love:

• Avocado
• Yogurt
• Bubble tea
• Berries and cream (!!!!!)
• Dessert

I mean, I've always loved frozen treats and warm baked goods, but I just never really saw myself as a dessert person. But man, I seem to really be developing a sweet tooth over the past couple of years.

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Earlier this week, I invited a friend over for dinner, which of course meant I also invited him over for dessert. I have way way way too many dessert options in my kitchen right now, but we ended up making smoothies. And by "we", I mean I chopped up some strawberries, and he was the one who actually blended the smoothie and decided what to put in it:

• Fresh strawberries
• Coconut yogurt
• Mango smoothie drink
• Vanilla ice cream
• Pina colada popsicle
• Strawberry popsicles
• Sugar

Yup, that's right. A strawberry smoothie with dairy. If you've known me for long enough, you know that I've always hated mixing berries with cream. Whenever I go to smoothie or bubble tea shops, I always ask if they put dairy in their smoothies. I get my strawberry smoothies dairy-free every single time. Just two years ago, I'm sure I would have taken a sip of this smoothie and thought it was gross.

But oh my god, it was delicious.

(Hey, that's four entries in a row where I'm calling my food delicious!)

My little sister called me while the smoothie-making was in progress, and in a shocked tone she said "Jeje, you like pink things now?!"

Yeah, I guess I do.

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And with that, I'm going to announce that it's time for me to put the blog posts on pause again so I can focus on other things.

v2! of the blog has been great. I've really, really been enjoying writing these entries. When I first started this blog, it was just a place for me to share photos of the food I make. Food blogs are known for having incredibly long personal anecdotes before every recipe, and I didn't want to be one of those obnoxious bloggers. But I later realized that I just need to write whatever feels right for me. I don't have recipes (yet!), so I decided to embrace the cheesy backstories.

Even though I won't be writing new posts for a while, that doesn't mean I'm totally putting the blog on hold. I've got some fun blog-related projects that I'm cooking up (heh). What will the blog look like when I write my next post? Will there be a v3?! Who knows.

But I will be back eventually.

Salads, burgers, and shrimp toast

September 6, 2019 6:19 PM

This past weekend was Labor Day which meant three day weekend, which meant four day workweek, and you'd think that it would be easy to get through, but I feel like I need to catch up on sleep again. I was so busy during the week that I didn't wash dishes for a whole three days, and you can imagine how gross that got.

I also somehow ended up with so much food in my fridge, so I've really been trying to eat all my leftovers. But, on to what I cooked this week.

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Sun Dried Tomato, Kale, and White Bean Skillet - Budget Bytes

Remember how I made kale salad last week? Well I still had half that bag of kale left. So, I needed to do something with it, and I wanted to actually cook the kale this time. I don't know what it is, but I still haven't quite mastered the art of making salad. I think salads that I've gotten from restaurants are delicious, but my homemade salads are never quite fulfilling enough.

So, I made this kale skillet. It was alright, certainly better than the salad. The recipe said to saute the kale for 3-5 minutes which I think is way too long. Just a minute should be good enough. I really am sick of eating kale at this point though. I added some shrimp to this for one of my meals, which made it a lot more satisfying.

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Drunken Aussie Beef Burgers - Cafe Delites

I might be bad at making salad, but I think I've got burgers down pretty well. I love burgers, but I'm almost always disappointed when I order one from a restaurant. They never have enough flavor. It's just cooked ground beef, and I'd like that beef to be transformed more.

I've had burgers on my to-make list for a while, and I figured it was appropriate to make them on Labor Day. This Drunken Aussie burger recipe had a lot of great reviews, so I figured I'd try it. And like every burger I've ever made, it was delicious. But I actually think that was mainly because of all the other toppings, and not the burger patty itself, which was a little on the bland side. Adding the beer helped, but it still felt like it was missing something. I think adding an egg in the ground beef mixture would have made it easier for the patty to stick together.

The recipe also said to use two different pans, which seemed excessive to me. I cooked all of it in the same pan in this order: bacon, onion, (wipe pan), egg, burgers. I'm happy with how it all turned out, but I don't think I'll be using this recipe again.

But hey, check out this salad that I added on the side! Since the burger called for arugula, I bought a (way too large) box of it, and I used it in a side salad as well. And I know I said I'm bad at making salads, but my "Arugula Strawberry Sun-Dried Tomato Salad with Balsamic Dressing" was decent.

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Cajun Shrimp Toast - Damn Delicious

Finally, I'm gonna end with this Cajun Shrimp Toast, which is another recipe that was on my to-make list for a while. This was also delicious, and I'm definitely making this again. I think it would be great as an appetizer during Christmas or some sports watching party. I don't remember exactly how many pieces of toast this yielded, but I ate more than half of them in one sitting.

Strawberry Pizza

January 29, 2019 2:09 PM

I really like How Sweet Eats. Jessica Merchant just posts so many interesting recipes. During my food blog browsing I came across Strawberry Pizza with Bacon and Caramelized Onions.

Which sounded real intriguing. I looked at the ingredients and I like pretty much everything that she put on the pizza. Of course I also scrolled through the comments to make sure someone actually tried it and gave it a good review.

Making anything involving dough kind of scares me, but my sister is great with dough so I had to make this while she's here. Plus strawberries were on sale!

It was delicious. If I ever make it again, I'd need to make note of a couple of things.

• Use two onions. Maybe three onions. Seriously, this needs way more onion.
• Get a larger baking sheet so I can make a larger pizza. The pizza crust was a bit too thick for my liking.