• Homemade Pizza on the Cheap May3rd 

    As you may or may not know at this point, I work at Trader Joe’s. And a few days ago, already on the lookout for healthier things to cook around the apartment, I rung up one too many customers buying our pizza dough - I had to ask if it was hard to make your own pizza.

    I learn just as much from TJ customers as I do from my more savvy co-workers and company samplings. Most of them actually match up to our employee literature as “intelligent, adventurous, label-readers”… Most.

    They assured me that I was up to the challenge, but just to make sure I put enough flour down when shaping the dough/crust.

    We usually order pepperoni and banana peppers toppings, so that night I bought:

    1. 1 bag of whole wheat dough (made a pizza large enough to feed 2 people) for $1
    2. 1 large container of pepperoni slices for $2
    3. 1 bag of mozzarella cheese for $2                                                       
    4. and 1 container of sweet peppers for $3 (customer fun fact: red peppers are high in vitamin C)                                
    5. we already had 1 container of sauce, but that would normally be about $3 (I used and will continue to use a “traditional sweet basil” pasta sauce we had, rather than ordinary tomato/pizza sauce, which added a lot of flavor)
    6. I also later bought 1 small bottle of olive oil for $2
    7. And I used some of my Webber grill mates Garlic & Herb, probably $2

    So that brings the total to $15, equivalent to the $14.99 it would be at Dominos before taxes, delivery fee, and tip. Plus, with the exception of the dough all of that is enough to make one or more other pizzas. And you can add another bag o’ dough (Bringing the total to $16)

    I didn’t document the process with pictures or anything like that (though I might play around with the idea of a stop motion animation of it next time around), but I did find several very helpful resources while researching to make sure I got it right the first time:

    1. Annie’s Eats (http://bit.ly/h5cGCU): Here is where I got the tip to brush olive oil on the outside part of the crust before baking. I sprinkled the grill mates garlic/herb mixture into some olive oil before applying. I found a pizza stone set like she suggests for $30 on Amazon if this becomes a habit: http://amzn.to/flBNvL
    2. ‘Blogger Mom’ (http://bit.ly/2YzNDZ) also posted an interesting list of easy alternate uses for pizza dough that I want to experiment with.
    3. And lastly Expert Village has a series of videos posted on YouTube documenting the whole process http://bit.ly/goVhSS 

    The long and short of it is that once you’re comfortable with what you are doing, it takes 40-50 minutes to make a much cheaper pizza that will blow anything you could order-in out of the water:

    1. Take your dough out of the fridge and let it sit (in the package) at room temperature for 30 minutes. This lets the glutens settle, and it will be very resistant to stretching/shaping and spring back into place quickly if it has not set long enough
    2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. (Between the dough packaging instructions and the internet I’ve seen from 425 to 500 listed, 450 works perfectly)
    3. During the latter half of the time the dough must sit, you can go ahead and chop up any toppings that need it, clean the surface you will be working on, and liberally spread some flour onto it so the dough will not stick to it.
    4. Stretch your dough into a circle. I prefer to pinch up the outside edges to make a fuller outer crust, but you can leave the whole slab of dough level also. If you stretch too far and tear wholes, simply fold the tear into a thicker area of dough and reduce the size you have tried to achieve.
    5. Spread your sauce on (leaving the outer crust area sauce-free), sprinkle shredded cheese, place your toppings, and sprinkle a little more cheese.
    6. Spread or drizzle (depending on the utensils available) olive oil over the outer crust if desired.
    7. Place the completed pizza on your cooking surface (pizza pan, cookie sheet, pizza peel, etc) and place in oven
    8. Bake for 10-25 minutes and enjoy!

    This one I can definitely chock up to experience. Delicious delicious experience :)

    EDIT: This was originally written when I first intended to start posting her about a month ago. I have since made many of these successfully including one utilizing artichoke antipasto in place of marinara and cheese to make something similar to a while pizza + artichokes - highly recommend it. Cheers!

    ArtGuero  Cheap  Healthy-er?  How-to  Make-Your-Own-Pizza  Cooking