Thursday, August 16, 2012

Pizza! Pizza!


Last week while I was shopping at Sam's Club, I picked up some of the ingredients to make homemade pizzas.  On Sunday, I whipped up a double batch of pizza dough. The pizza dough recipe I use will make two cookie sheet sized pizzas or twelve after school snack sized pizzas. After I finished the dough, I made the two pizzas you seen in the photo above and that is what we had for lunch on Sunday. There was enough pizza left over for lunch on Monday and Tuesday as well. On Sunday, I put the second half of the dough in the refrigerator and waited until I had a day off to work with it. 

Here is what I picked up at Sam's Club for pizzas last week:

5 pounds Mozzarella Cheese - $11.98
3 pounds Pepperoni - $7.98
Black Olives 6.25

I also opened one of the Industrial sized cans of pizza sauce I blogged about here. I froze the rest of the sauce that I did not use for later.  And even after making all this pizza, I still have plenty of cheese, pepperoni, sauce, and black olives to use in other recipes.

The recipe I use for pizza crust is one I found years ago from the Friendly Freezer Yahoo group and was created by the list owner, Robbyn Snyder. Her website is no longer online, but if you use the Internet Wayback machine you can find it here: Pizza Page for Robbyn

Garlic Pizza Crust
Recipe By : Robbyn Serving Size : 12
 
Ingredients:

2 cups tepid water (90*)
1/2 cup oil
3 cloves crushed garlic
5 1/2 to 6 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons yeast

Directions:
 
Dissolve yeast in water and add sugar.
Add oil and salt and garlic.
Mix in 3 cups flour and mix well. 
Add remaining flour and knead till smooth.
Allow to rise twice in the bowl. Punch down.
Oil baking sheets, use hands to press out to edges.
Add sauce and toppings.
Bake at 425* for 20 min.

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As I mentioned earlier, this recipe will also make 12 after school sized snacks, which is what I worked on today since I was not subbing. I set the dough on my counter and cut it into 12 equal size pieces and then place them individually into an eight inch round baking pan to spread the dough out. I make four of them at a time since I have four pans and they will all fit in the oven at the same time. Here is what they look like before they go into the oven:


Of course, if you decide to make these you are going to add the toppings you like. I love pepperoni and black olives. I love good Italian sausage too when I can find it. Here is what they look like when they are cooling on my baking racks:



As I mentioned earlier, I made twelve of these today, and Mom and I had one for lunch. I also have another one in the refrigerator for my daughter for after school. After they cool, I place each individual pizza in its own one gallon size Ziploc bag and stack them in the freezer. 

Here they are stacked up on my counter:

And here they are stacked in the freezer, right on top of a Tony's frozen pizza. Oh, the irony, lol. ;)


This to me is the ultimate convenience food. To have homemade pizzas already cooked and ready to just warm up feels like a luxury to me. I wish I had the energy to have them in my freezer regularly, but they get eaten up pretty fast. Sort of like how homemade bread gets eaten faster than store bought bread. 

What is one of your homemade convenience foods?


Belinda
© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2012-2016.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

11 comments:

  1. Hi Belinda,
    It was pizza night in our house last night, too! Your's look good. And I like the idea of using what look like cake pans to bake them in, for individual size pizzas.

    For frugal convenience food, I make large batches of pasta and pizza sauce and keep in the freezer. I can use it to make pizza sandwiches in a hurry, or cook some pasta and pour it over, or Italian sloppy Joes.

    I prepare a lot of items for the freezer, including oatmeal. We make really great oatmeal in our house. We add fruit, nuts, spices, and make oatmeal that rivals Jamba Juice's, Starbucks and Mc Donald's oatmeal, for pennies a cup, instead of a couple of dollars. I freeze these in small yogurt containers. Anyone who didn't get breakfast in the morning can grab one to go.

    Have great day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your oatmeal sounds great, Lili. I love the idea of making individual ones for the freezer. McDonald's oatmeal is very good. We received a coupon package last summer with a coupon to try it free, and it was really good! That is such a good idea to make them at home.

      I did use my cake pans to make the individual pizzas. They are the perfect size for individual pizzas. Your pizza sandwich sounds good. Is that like a calzone or do you use hamburger buns? It sounds so interesting! :)

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    2. Pizza sandwiches are our way of making quickie pizza. Two ways: 1) Take a slice of bread, toast it in the toaster, lightly. Spread with pasta sauce, top with cheese and toppings and broil in oven. 2) Take a slice of bread, spread with sauce and top with cheese and toppings. Place in a heated skillet, cover with a lid, and cook until the bottom is toasty and cheese is melted. This is camping pizza, or for us, when our oven went out, it was how we "baked" pizza for several months, until I bought a small countertop oven to tide us over till we replaced our regular oven.

      Delete
    3. Belinda, my kiddos like thin crust pizza and they like the toppings just added to flour tortillas and broiled. Super fast!

      Delete
    4. I've done the flour tortillas as pizza crusts too, Shara, and they are good! Quick and easy also, which I like too. I also like the English Muffins turned into pizzas, but my daughter does not like those. They made those in school when I was growing up. :)

      Delete
    5. Lili, those pizza sandwiches sound good. I will have to try that sometime and see what everyone things of them. Thanks!

      Delete
  2. I love love love the idea of baking them in the individual serving sizes. Definitely going to do this. I need some quick foods for daughter to grab occasionally and this would do the trick. Do you think I could reduce the salt in the crust to half with no ill effects?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can definitely reduce the salt with no ill effects, Shara. This is the perfect foods for kids to heat & eat. :)

      Delete
  3. Belinda, you are one ambitious lady. The pizzas look delicious and as you said a great snack for your daughter and/or lunches.

    I am the pizza eater here and I usually make the flour tortilla pizzas as my preference is thin crust and those are just perfect and one fits in my toaster oven.

    Enjoy!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Mary Lou. I too enjoy pizza made on a flour tortilla and cooking one in your toaster oven is a good money saver verses heating up a big oven. Thank you for visiting and reading my blog. I hope to see you again soon. :)

      Delete
  4. how do you do your oatmeal for the freezer? Thanks, Terry

    ReplyDelete

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