Pizza from Scratch!

I love pizza! Since meatless pizza alternatives here in San Pablo just don't do it for me* (Greenwich's Garden Fresh Pizza comes close), I oftentimes just make my own.

Previously, I would just buy ready made frozen crust and ready made packaged pizza sauce from the grocery to make them, but this time I thought I'd do one from scratch.

Since I'm not smart enough to invent something like this, I did what any sensible person would do, look for recipes on the Internet!

I found these two recipes from Foodwishes.blogspot.com. The first recipe is for the pizza sauce:

Pizza Sauce Recipe
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2012/02/pizza-sauce-lets-play-hide-little-fish.html

I gotta say, this sauce turned out fantastic! In fact, it's amazing. I wasn't able to find any of the specified canned tomato (San Marzano), but I was able to find another brand, also imported from Italy that surprisingly wasn't so expensive.

I'm NEVER buying ready made pizza sauce (or even spaghetti sauce) again!

For the dough:

California Pizza Dough
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfgang-pucks-famous-california-pizza.html

Making the dough was pretty tricky so I had to follow the instructions very carefully.

The dough I made wasn't as good looking as what was in the recipe, but it worked fine anyway.

It is here I started to add my own thing. I added my own favorite toppings (chopped red and green bell peppers and mushrooms) and my favorite cheeses.

I also cooked the pizza longer than what's in the recipe because the bottom wasn't toasting as much as the one in the recipe in the time that was specified. Perhaps it's just my oven. I ended up cooking it twice as long.

It turned out pretty good! I can now make real pizza!

*I am not a vegetarian, but for health reasons I decided to cut down on my meat by 90%.

The Best Buko Pie. PERIOD.

As a life long Laguna resident, I've been eating buko pie for as long as I can remember. I've eaten them all. And in my opinion, the best ever buko pie is Orient, the Original Buko Pie from Los Baños.

I know that hardcore Los Baños residents would insist that Letty's Buko Pie is better and even more original than Original. I think it's just loyalty talking. Or that irrational need to proclaim the lesser known is better simply because they like going against the grain.

My thinking is, quality is what wins out.

Between Letty's and Orient, stores which are located near each other, which one of these always *always* have the long lines of people at any time of the day? And when people buy do they buy just one box? No, they buy 4, 5 or even 10 boxes at a time.

That line is not just habit, or  hype. That is reputation that's been earned for decades.

But I trust my own taste buds. And for me, Letty's Buko Pie is just too sweet for me. Collette's Buko Pie is even sweeter. El Mare hovers somewhere between those two.

The sugar content of Orient Buko Pie is just right. More than that, there's a certain flavor and taste that I just don't get at all from any other buko pie.