May is just a few days away, and I can’t believe I’ve only made one post in April. I have a backlog of posts in the coming days so please bear with me.

I made this pizza from scratch when I was still living in Los Baños. This was my first time to make pizza from scratch and I so love it I made pizza on consecutive weekends. By scratch, I meant making my own thin crust topped with whatever ingredients we had at hand. It’s easy to do, not much kneading required (which I like a lot). The highlight was finding out how  great freshly chopped garlic goes with the rest of the toppings. Garlic pizza, anyone?

I am saving for an oven in my new home in Gen San (perhaps the oven that blogging bought?) and pizza will probably be the first dish that I will cook on it!

My first ever thin crust pizza
(Modified from Yummy magazine)

1/2 tbsp yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cool water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt

Whisk yeast, lukewarm water, 1/4 cup flour in a bowl. Dust lightly with flour then let rest for about 20 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour, water, olive oil and salt. Knead then gradually add remaining flour. Knead the dough until elastic. Shape into a ball, dust with flolur and leave to rise double in bulk. Flatten the ball with a rolling pin to your desired shape and thickness (or thinness). I didn’t use a rolling pin (I knew we had one, but I couldn’t find it!) so I just flattened the dough with the palm of my hands and let it fit an 8-inch pie pan.

To dress up the crust, drizzle the crust with olive oil. Add some chopped garlic. Spread catsup  and pesto all over the crust. Add the toppings you have at hand. In my case, I added black and green olives, onions, bell pepper and salami. Top with grated cheese, fresh tarragon, and more chopped garlic. Bake at 300 F for about 20 minutes.