Cheap, Easy Pizza

I love having one night a week where I have something stable and set for dinner. For us, it's pizza night. If we were to buy pizzas, we'd have to get 3 from a store (with some left over.) I'm pretty picky too, so it'd cost right around $10 if Red Baron was on sale. Closer to $15 if not, plus drinks. I'm cheap and don't spend that much on any meal unless we're going out to eat! So, we make our own.

Since we do make it weekly, and since I also make bread and various other things from scratch, we just buy in bulk from Sam's Club, making each pizza super cheap. We buy a 25lb bag of flour, a 6lb can of paste/ sauce (we divide it into 5 freezer bags plus what we use for the first meal,) 3lb bag of pepperoni (my husband also uses it on sandwiches,) a five pound bag of cheese (can also be frozen in parts,) and a gigantic 2 pack of dried yeast (found in the baking aisle in most stores, near the spices in our Sam's) for under $40. I'm not sure how much the honey costs, because I haven't bought it in so long, and the same goes for the cooking oil. I shop once a month, and normally still have several things I don't need to get. The sauce is the thing we run out of quickest, and even that lasts 6 meals (total of 12 of our pizzas, or 18 medium size store pizzas) before having to get more. In short, meal ends up costing under $6 if you make one 12" (normal medium) and one 16" (normal Large to X-Large) pizza, and we normally have pretty much the full medium left.

What you'll need to make 2-3 pizzas:
5 cups of flour
4 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast
2 tbsp honey (or other sweet stuff)
2 cups warm water
2tbsp cooking oil
1 1/2 cups sauce or tomato paste/ crushed tomatoes + add your own spices(We use the extra for dipping fresh bread sticks in)
24 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (I think we adjust that quite a bit)
Any other toppings you would like.

Grease your pans. (I have one 12" and one 16", and both get used) Mix the flour, yeast, honey, water, and cooking oil together to form dough. Add a little extra flour if needed, but I try not to for the best tasting dough. Knead for 5 minutes, and don't slack on this part, or your dough will be dense and won't taste as good.

Spread the dough into the greased pans, set a clean dish towel over it, and let sit for 10 minutes. This is where I normally also turn on the oven. You'll want to heat the oven to 400F. If your oven is like mine, it'll be right about at 400 when the 10 minutes for the dough setting is up. Pop the pans in the oven for 5 minutes for a softer crust, 7 for a more crisp crust.

Take the crust out, put on the toppings, and put the pizza back in for 15-18 minutes. Remove, cool, cut, eat.

Yep. Really that simple, and you know exactly what's going on your pizza. I also recommend trying things like broccoli, onions, or pineapple to add flavor and to make your pizza more unique to you.