Tuesday Dinner

Tonight I made homemade pizza. I tried a new recipe for crust from my bread machine. The verdict: better than Pillsbury pizza dough from a can, and definitely better than the kind from a mix. About the same, taste-wise, as frozen bread dough or those pre-baked Mama Mia crusts. So the real benefit here was cost - ingredients for 2 crusts cost me less than $1.

After stretching the dough into oiled pans, I pre-baked them at 400 for 10 minutes, then I brushed them with a little olive oil.

I made one Pizza Margharita. First I spread a little minced garlic over the crust. Then I topped with fresh tomatoes from my garden, sliced thin and seeded so the whole thing wouldn't be too wet and sloppy. I added salt and pepper, than 1/2 of an 8oz package of shredded mozzarella. After baking for 15 minutes at 400, I added fresh minced parsley and fresh chiffonades of basil, both from my garden. I then baked an extra 3 - 5 minutes.

I topped the second pizza with spinach, carmelized onions, bacon, and gorgonzola cheese. First, I topped the crust with about 2 cups fresh spinach leaves. Then I spread my carmelized onions over that, and sprinkled with 3 sliced of diced, cooked bacon. I topped with the other 1/2 bag of shredded mozzarella cheese and also baked it with the one above (400, 15 mins). I sprinkled a few tablespoons of gorgonzola cheese crumbles over the top, and put it back in the oven for an extra 3 - 5 minutes.

Both pizzas were delicious - the spinach/onion/bacon/gorgonzola one being slightly more awesome than the tomato/basil one.

Totals:

$1 - pizza crust ingredients
$2 - mozzarella cheese
$1 - bacon, onion, gorgonzola
free - spinach (the last of what my sister brought us), tomatoes and fresh herbs from garden

$4 for dinner for 4 (sister joined us), plus leftover pizza that almost certainly won't last 'til morning


Note: My sister doesn't like blue cheese, but she loved the pizza with gorgonzola anyway. The trick is using it as an accent, and cooking it until it melts in with the other ingredients. This way, it just added a layer of salty tanginess to the flavor without being overpoweringly "blue-cheesy."