Italian Sausage, Fennel and Vegetable Pesto Pizza

This is my first official pizza entry as Pissaladiere is technically not a pizza. It is also an easy one to make because I have already had most of the ingredients ready since they're similar to the ones in the Spaghetti with Broccolini and Peas in Pesto Sauce that I made over the weekend. I added some Italian sausage and fennel slices to give additional flavor to it.

The good thing about making a pizza is that you can add almost anything you want or have in the fridge. I don't have any pizza stone so I used a baking sheet to bake the pizza on and good thing it turned out well.


Ingredients:
1 pizza dough (I used plain pizza dough from Trader's Joe)
2 links of sweet Italian sausage
1 fennel, cored and sliced
2 green garlic, one sliced to 2" pieces and the other roughly chopped
a few leaves each of spinach, arugula and dandelions
a handful of Broccolini
1 cup of shredded Mozzarella cheese
pesto sauce

Directions:

• Pre-heat up the oven to 450 degree.
• Take the sausages out of the link, break out of bite-size pieces.
• Cook the sausage pieces with a little bit of olive oil for 5 minutes over medium heat until they are almost cooked. Add in the sliced fennel and chopped green garlic and cook for another 4 minutes until the fennel slices are starting to soften up. Set aside.
• Work on the pizza dough according to the package direction (rest in a room temperature for 20 minutes, stretch by hand or using a rolling pin over a lightly floured surface to 12" diameter circle and move onto a lightly oiled baking pan or pizza stone if you have one).
• Top the pizza with about 1/4 cup of the pesto sauce, then with the vegetables, sliced green garlic, sausage bits and mozzarella cheese.
• Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and the bottom of the pizza is golden brown.
  

Gialina Pizzeria

Today, I went to Gialina Pizzeria in the Glen Park district with Mo-Fo. I read about this neighborhood pizza place several times in various sites and most recently on Bauer's blog today. It was not our first choice to go there today because we were planning to have an Omakase meal at Yume in Alameda - unfortunately, it was closed for several days because the chef was sick. We arrived at Gialina around 6pm and had to wait for about 10 minutes for our table. It was a little bit surprising to me that there were quite a few small children in the restaurant and, of course, one of them sat next to me.

We decided to splurge so each of us pick an appetizer, a pizza and a dessert and we shared a bottle of wine. The food was generally good - straight forward and tasty. The only dish that perplexed us was the Strawberry Shortcake with Whipped Cream because the shortcake tasted like a savory biscuit. However, overall, we enjoyed our dinner and we were totally stuffed and satisfied at the end of our meal.



Soft Polenta with Goat Cheese, Spicy Chilies & Basil


Little Meatballs with Tomato Sauce & Aged Provolone


Atomica Pizza - Tomato, Mushrooms, Mozzarella, Spicy Chilies & Red Onions


Broccoli Rabe Pizza with Sweet Italian Sausage & Val d'Aosta Fontina


Bi Rite Creamery Ice Cream: Mint Chocolate Chips, Honey Lavender and Cherry Almonds


Strawberry Shortcake (Biscuit?) with Whipped Cream

Dinner at Chow

After having beer at Pilsner Inn with ShunBun and Danny for happy hour, the three of us went next door to Chow Restaurant on Church for a mellow Friday evening dinner. It was still pretty early in the evening so we didn't have to wait for a table.

Fennel-Sausage Pizza with mozzarella, escarole, tomato, red onion, oregano and ricotta.


Sustainable seafood of the day - Halibut with asparagus, peas, pea-shoots and mashed potatoes


Slow pot-roasted Beef Short Ribs with mushroom-herb gravy and mashed potatoes