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On top of the crust

For the sauce, you can cook it yourself. We often make larger quantities than we need, and then freeze them in little plastic containers you can thaw at room temperature, or zap for a minute in the microwave. If you are using the microwave, remember to transfer the sauce into a glass bowl so you don’t get those unsightly red stains on your tupperware.

If pressed for time and can’t cookk the sauce from scratch, you can use the store bought kind out of a jar. Spread the sauce over the dough and be sure to cover it to the rim.
Next, top the pizza sauce with your favorite cheeses. It’s more economical to purchase a block of cheese and use a grater to slice it for pizza toppings. Those already shredded bags have only two or three cups in each, which is not going to go the distance for an entire family, especially if you like it extra cheesy. Besides, fresh cheese melts better; the stuff in bags is usually pretty dry.

Then top the cheese with your favorite meat and veggies.

Want to have even more fun with your family pizza creations? See who can make the wildest pizza. Throw a little leftover chicken or hamburger on top. How about jalapenos? They’re good for those who like it hot.

Don’t forget the spices. It wouldn’t be a pizza without oregano, basil, and some thyme, perhaps some fennel if you love that italian sausage taste, or some red pepper flakes, black pepper, or a dash of sea salt.

If you have at least two baking stones or pizza trays, you can make more than one at a time. Everyone can help to clean up while you wait for dinner to be ready. When the timer goes off, you have a great homemade pizza.

If there are leftovers of your pizza, enjoy them tomorrow for lunch!

The cost of ingredients for the pizza might add up, especially the cheese, or if you don’t make the sauce and crust home-made, but again, if you are cooking it yourself, you have a lot more control over calories and the freshness of the ingredients. It can also be a great way to use up leftovers!

Enjoy.

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Meal Planning Made Simple

How many times have we opted for fast food for lunch or dinner instead of planning ahead and cooking? There’s no telling how much money we’ve spent on that one meal that easily becomes a few (or more) meals a week.

Instead of picking up that telephone and calling for delivery pizza, why not come up with some ways to stretch your food budget, and eat more healthy at the same time?

For example, why not get the family together and make one at home?

Making homemade pizza can become a great new family tradition. Choose a day of the week when everyone can get together and enjoy the experience. You can even pretend that you are in a real Italian eatery, and go all out by decorating the dining room table to resemble a pizzeria.

The best thing about homemade pizza is picking the toppings. You can do one large pizza and divide it into sections, or, if you like a lot of crust like my mother, you can make individual personal pizzas.

Since it is your personal pizza, you can have as many different toppings as you like. It’s a chance to raid the cabinets and the fridge to find good stuff to top your creation, and also perhaps to use up some of those leftovers you’re never quite sure what to do with, like meatballs, broccoli, spinach, corn, ham, chicken, whatever you like.

THE CRUST
How will you prepare the crust? Now, this step can be easy or an adventure. You can use an already prepared crust from the store like Pillsbury pizza crust in the pop open can, or a Boboli pizza crust. They are not too expensive, especially if you buy them in bulk and keep them on the shelf or in the fridge or freezer until ready to use.

It you want to treat the family to a fun time with flour and dough, choose to make your own crusts. With your own, the size of the pizza can be customized for each person in the family. Making your own dough crusts will also make use of those handy pantry staples we talked about in another artcile, the cheap, all purpose flour.

You can find a classic pizza dough recipe on the Internet and in just about any cookbook, so find one that you like and read the instructions. You will also need yeast, and time to raise it.

One other possibility is French bread or Italian bread pizza. A lot of bakeries sell loaves cheaply anyway, and even cheaper if it is day old bread, which would work fine for our purposes because it will hold up well to the sauce and toppings without getting mushy.

Still other people pressed for time or who want a quick lunch time treat might for for the English muffin pizza. Again, just make sure you toast it lightly first so it doesn’t get soggy once you add your sauce, toppings and cheese.

If you are making your own dough, once then the dough is ready, shape it into a circle of appropriate size. Create a rim on the dough so that the sauce won’t bubble over onto the oven rack. Now comes the fun part. The dough is ready to be dressed to the nines with whatever you like.

Continued in: It’s not Delivery Pizza, It’s Homemade Part 2

Meal Planning Made Simple

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