In addition to reading my posts, be sure to visit Amanda's blog (after Thursday) for a round-up of all the thrifty home and cooking tips and recipes that came in this week from folks around the blogosphere. Visit anytime to learn how to participate too.
Thrifty Thursday #1 -- Make Your Own Pizza!
My first suggestion for this topic is make your own pizza at home instead of going out (can you tell I've been working on a lot of pizza features lately?). I've been making pizza at home for years and didn't think much about the cost -- I just know I make better pizza than most restaurants do. It wasn't until Amanda tried my business partner Mitch Mandell's pizza dough recipe and proudly declared "I'll never spend fifty bucks again to feed the family pizza," that I began to think about the frugal aspect of making your own pizza at home. So not only will you save money, you'll get a better quality pizza than most restaurants, topped with your own personal array of favorite toppings.
You probably already have most of the ingredients in your pantry to make your own pizza, but even if you had to go out and buy it all from scratch, the total cost would be less than going out a single time for a family and you'll have enough ingredients for several pizza nights.
Pizza Doughs
Good pizza all starts with the dough. You can buy refrigerated pizza dough, but using your food processor, it's so quick and easy to make dough that once you try it, you'll never go back to the refrigerator variety again. If you haven't already, I urge you to try one or both of these dough recipes:
- Cheri's Favorite Pizza Dough -- A chewy textured thinner crust with just enough crispness to stand up to toppings.
- Mitch's Basic Pizza Dough -- Makes a sweeter, thick yeasty dough.
Food Allergies or Celiac?
Now you can have your pizza and eat it too. Click here for Carole Fenster's fabulous Gluten Free Pizza Dough recipe.
How to Roll Pizza
If you're new to making pizza, the FabulousFoods.com Pizza Maker Primer will show you how to roll out the dough. Trust me, it's not that difficult. Pizza dough is far more forgiving than pie or pastry dough.
Favorite Pizza Recipes
One of the greatest things about pizza is that you can top it your way, with your favorite ingredients. But should you have have cook's block, the recipes below will provide some terrific pizza choices.
- California Pizza Kitchen's Sicilian Pizza (pictured at right) -- A real meat lover's pizza.
- Mitch's Vegetable Pizza -- Instead of using the traditional tomato sauce, this pizza dough is brushed with garlic oil then topped with cheese and fresh tomatoes and other veggies.
- Pizza Margherita -- Named after Queen Margherita, wife of Italy's King Umberto I, this classic has the simple, yet highly flavorful combination of fresh basil and fresh tomatoes.
- New York Style Pizza (pictured top of this post) -- It doesn't get any better than this -- chewy New York style pizza with all the classic toppings.
- BBQ Chicken Pizza -- This California style pizza recipe is a great way to use grilled chicken breasts, so we always throw a few on the grill anytime we have it going.
- Stuft Crust Pizza -- Pizza with melted cheese stuffed right into the crust edge.
- Pepper and Olive Pan Pizza -- Cornmeal gives the crunchy bottom that is typical of a good pizza parlor pizza.
- Canadian Bacon and Pineapple Pizza -- A fabulous sweet and savory combo.
- Eating Well's Pizza with Prosciutto, White Beans and Rosemary -- White beans seasoned with fresh rosemary and prosciutto make this rustic pizza very interesting.
- Eating Well's Pepperonata and Sausage Pizza -- A melding of sautéed onions, bell peppers and tomatoes, peperonata is often served as an Italian antipasto, but here it makes a fabulous pizza topping.
- Pizza with Goat Cheese, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Shrimp (pictured at right) -- I love pesto! This simple sauce gives everything an instant gourmet touch. The addition of goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes are icing on the cake.
- Thai Style Chicken, Shrimp or Vegetable Pizza -- The peanut sauce from this California style pizza is what makes it. You can use chicken, shrimp or leave it as a vegetarian pizza. A pizza with Asian flavors may sounds strange, but it's actually delicious. Try it and see.
5 comments:
I love Mitch's dough, there's no doubt, but I can't wait to try yours Cheri! All this time I have been using the bread machine, so I will definitely try yours in the food processor :)
If you have a bread machine, that will work just fine too. I just wanted to include the food processor version as most people don't have a bread machine. But talk about frugal, didn't you find you bread machine at a thrift store? Good score!
I make my own pizza once a while. My guy like it because I can make their half with different stuff (no cheese, a little cheese, mushrooms, no mushrooms).
I can't imagine anything better than Mitch's pizza dough, but I intend to try both yours and CPK's. Thanks so much for posting these recipes and I will let you know how they are. I love using my Cuisinart for the dough, even though I have a 475-watt KA mixer with dough hook that works great too.
Thanks Judy. Let me know what you think of the other doughs.
Carrie -- you hit the nail on the head with homemade pizza -- everyone gets it the way they like it.
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