Pizza on the Cheap

I'm trying to stick to a strict grocery budget this week. Pizza may not come to mind when your living on a budget, but often when you look in your fridge you have the stuff to put one together. This pizza had seasoned hamburger meat (about 1/3 of a pound), about 12 pepperonis, half a green pepper, half an onion, and a bag of Italian blend cheese. It tasted really good.

I don't really follow recipes close and I often just throw things together. I'll give you my recipe for pizza crust to the best of my ability, but I'm not positive of the exact amounts. A lot of this you do by feel.

Preheat your oven to 450.

• 3 cups of self rising flour
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 teaspoon of minced garlic
• a handful of Italian blend cheese
• two tablespoons of sugar

Mix flour, sugar, and cheese first, then add the olive oil, milk, and garlic. Begin mixing together. Add warm water until dough forms. You may not need a whole cup of warm water. Kneed the dough for about 10 minutes. Cover with a cloth and set aside for 20 minutes. You can roll the dough out with a rolling pin or press it into a pan by hand. I used a pizza pan this time, but it's a good crust to use in a large cast iron skillet for a deep dish pizza. Top pizza as desired and cook for 20 - 25 minutes.

While the dough is setting you can cook your hamburger meat or sausage. I cooked a pound of hamburger meat and put the rest up to make something else with the next day. Pizza is great because you can just throw anything you have on it and it turns out great. I didn't have any pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce so I used medium salsa on it and I liked that better than regular pizza sauce.