Pizza Time Bro!

Image courtesy of homemadehooplah.com

Pizza is great. There are different takes on pizza from all over the country and all over the world. You’ve got pizza with veggies, pizza with meat, thin crust pizza, deep dish pizza, microwave, gourmet, and everything in between. Something that you might not know about pizza is that it can get expensive depending on where you get it from and how you order it. So today, we’re going to go over some tips on making your own pizza. This dish will keep your wallet plump, be a little more gentle on your waist, and taste better than the delivery guy’s stuff.

First let’s talk about the deceptive cost of delivery. A lot of chain style pizza places advertise at $12.99+tax for a large one topping pizza. You open their website on your phone and start to place your order. Your large pizza starts at $12.99, but then you change the kind of pizza sauce you want, that’ll be an additional dollar. Let’s say you add two more toppings, that’ll be another dollar each. By the way, official protocol at the restaurants is to give you less of each topping with each one you add. You go to check out and your pizza that was $12.99 is now, $15.99+tax, plus a delivery fee, don’t forget to tip your driver. Not to mention the cost of the sides you will probably impulse buy (that chocolate lava cake always looks great). The point is, cheap pizza is not even cheap.

This time we’re going to go step by step and add up the cost of making your own pizza. First we’re going to buy pizza dough from your local bakery or the bakery at a supermarket. Always opt for fresh dough over a frozen shell, although the Pillsbury tube of dough is good too, that costs around $3.00. Now, buy yourself olive oil, garlic, and a jar of marinara sauce. Olive oil is about $5.00 for a small bottle, garlic is less than a dollar, and sauce is about $3.00. Last, we want some mozzarella cheese and fresh basil. Ideally, you want to get the log of mozz cheese but a bag is fine too, that cost $2.00 to $5.00. Basil is a dollar. Now, you are ready to assemble your first, homemade pizza.

A few things to know before you start cooking this pizza. Wash your hands! You need to get a kitchen knife and a cutting board. The pizza dough wants to stick to things. To stop it from doing that, make sure you have some flour on hand. Finally, make sure you have a pizza sheet to cook it on. The first time you go into this pizza project things add up but once you buy them once you have them. Other optional equipment includes a pizza peel, a pizza cutter, and a serving plate.

We’re going to start by roasting the garlic. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, peel and crush your garlic and put it in a ceramic dish submerged in olive oil, cover the dish with aluminum foil. Let it roast until the garlic is golden brown, about 30 min. Once it’s done cooking, mash it into a paste with a fork. Next, you roll out your pizza dough onto your baking sheet, add cooled off roasted garlic paste to the first layer, spread it around. Next, add sauce to the pizza in increments of tablespoons and make sure that is spread around evenly. The fourth step is slice your mozzarella into quarter inch thick half moons. Place the cheese on the pizza however you see fit. Turn up your oven as hot as it can go. Now you put it in the oven and let it cook until the crust is golden brown and the cheese starts to bubble. Remove it from the oven and top it with your fresh basil.

What have we done? You made pizza. It cost about the same as a delivery. But there is another layer to it, you actually did something. You were active in making your food instead of passively ordering pizza off an app. When you eat your creation, you will feel that accomplishment and enjoy it that much more. Don’t forget now that you know how to make one pizza, you can make any pizza. You can even make a date out of it, have an active pizza night instead of a passive one. That is all I have for you this week. Thanks for checking into Cravrr, make sure to subscribe to the email list for our next post. Eat right bro.