The Change That Adds Up…Week 8
Who doesn’t like pizza? I mean, what’s not to like? Bread, tomotoes, cheese. Anything that starts with those three things can only get better.
So last week I sent out a tweet. Who has an easy, failproof pizza crust recipe? I got a couple of great responses. One from Two Peas & Their Pod, and one from Pinkstripes. Ultimately though, I went with Pinkstripes suggestion of Mark Bittman’s Basic Pizza Dough from his book How to Cook Everything. You can find the recipe for it here.
I made it with no problem whatsoever. It rose well, it rolled out perfectly, and baked to a nice crispy and yet soft crust. I was super pleased.
It would be wrong of me to let on like the whole pizza making process went without incident. it didn’t. Because of all the food blog reading I have been doing, I learned that to achieve the perfect pizza crust, in essence, making it a pizza similar to one fired in a pizza oven, you must have your oven as hot as it will get. In my house, that’s 550. That’s haaawwwt.
And when I stuck my two baking stones in the oven and allowed them to heat up, well, one of them had some kind of funk on it that smoked and puffed sending billows of hot ashy smelliness all through my kitchen and into my smoke detector…every single time I opened the door. That resulted in me jumping up and down a with a dish towel, fanning the detector, all to the delight of my young sous chef who wanted to jump and wave a towel around too. And here I thought the alarm would scare him. Crazy child.
And when I stuck my two baking stones in the oven and allowed them to heat up, well, one of them had some kind of funk on it that smoked and puffed sending billows of hot ashy smelliness all through my kitchen and into my smoke detector…every single time I opened the door. That resulted in me jumping up and down a with a dish towel, fanning the detector, all to the delight of my young sous chef who wanted to jump and wave a towel around too. And here I thought the alarm would scare him. Crazy child.
The hot stones worked like a charm, though. 4 minutes on the bottom rack, followed by 3 to 4 minutes on the highest rack resulted in a nice, thin and bubbly crust, and nicely browned cheese on top. It was excellent! We topped the three pizzas (the recipe, as written , made 2 medium pizzas and one large) with grated mozzarella, tomatoes, potatoes and ground beef. We love potatoes on pizza, and if you haven’t had it, you need to give it a try.
So, let’s do a cost analysis:
1 Large Pizza – $16.00
2 Medium Pizzas – $19.00 (assuming you get some kind of meal deal)
Tax & Tip – $15.00
Total – $50.00
Yes, I know that’s a high total, but that’s the amount of pizza we made, and were able to eat it for dinner, the next day for lunch, and again for another dinner. So we stretched it out. This amount of pizza would easily feed 6. Easily. Our cost?
Dough for Crusts – $1.50
Tomatoes – $1.20
Cheese – $2.50
1 pound Beef – $1.80
Seasonings – $.50
Potatoes – $.50
Total – $8.00
Total savings – $42.00. Plus, not only does it save money, the results are amazingly better, and it’s more fun to be able to make your own and add the toppings everyone likes.
I hope everyone is gearing up for a great weekend, it looks like there is some great weather heading our way! Have fun and maybe give this pizza a go…you won’t regret it!
