another murasaki trip

Dad's treat for mom's bday. yum =)

I have to label these pictures before I forget what they were! Seared toro with shiitake mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic. Garnished with shiso. Dai-san knows how to make my mom happy, for sure. She loves the seared toro!

Seafood soup, warm and cleansing.

Bluefin tuna.

Yellowtail, a nice big piece =).

Shima Aji, this had a wonderful juicy texture. One of Dai-san's favorites.

Dai-san's other favorite, kanpachi. Another fish with wonderful texture, sprinkled with a little sea salt and spice.

One of my favorites, amaebi. Can't come here without getting it. The head is prepared fried or in miso soup - I absolutely love the miso soup version!

Fresh uni. Another one of my favorites. Murasaki always has fresh uni, and it's tasty!!

valentine's: a rare cooking opportunity!

mike and i, not sure what to make for valentine's day dinner, turned to the internet to find a recipe for some kind of pasta with tomatoes. we were in luck! it turns out there are a ton! we picked a champagne, tomato, mushroom sauce with shrimp. can you guess which bowl was mine? we also made strawberry shortcake for dessert. both turned out delicious, so i wanted to keep a pointer to the recipes for posterity! hopefully allrecipes doesn't go kaput.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Champagne-Shrimp-and-Pasta/Detail.aspx

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Scrumptious-Strawberry-Shortcake/Detail.aspx

i did cut the shortcake a little small, so it was difficult to make a nice piece of shortcake with strawberry - but you could just pile the strawberries on top. yummy anyway. next time, i'll remember to cut the shortcake into bigger pieces, maybe 2x2 in squares instead of 1x1 >.<... also, sadly, i completely forgot that you can make whipped cream out of heavy cream! sigh. so we initially ate our strawberry shortcake without whipped cream. oops!

highlights from a week in mammoth