We're always looking for something new to try, so when we come across an appealing idea or recipe, we'll tuck it away for a weekend, when we often spend a little extra time cooking together.

Last Sunday, though, was an end to a long week, so we were both thinking pizza. (I wanted takeout, Steve was thinking frozen.)

But then we remembered we had some homemade tomato sauce in the freezer, from a summer surplus of tomatoes in a family member's garden. And that got us to thinking. Why buy a pizza when we could just throw together our own?

At first I lamented that ingredients would likely cost us more than buying a frozen pizza, but the more we thought about ingredients we had on hand already, the more I liked the idea.

We had the sauce.

We had ricotta (which I've already established is one of my favorite ingredients -- we like to drain it a little and use small globs of it on pizza, something we learned to love at a gourmet pizza joint in Indy).

We had a wedge of parmesan cheese (though we ended up swapping it with some shredded cheeses).

So we took a quick spin through the grocery to add to the stockpile:

-- A tube of pre-made pizza dough (which we drizzled with hearty olive oil once we had it spread out in the pan and ready to bake).

-- A tub of sliced baby portabello mushrooms (which we opted for because they were the same price as the sliced white button mushrooms but pack a little more flavor).

-- A package of sliced soprasetta, a peppery type of salami made with pork and, in this case, at least, wine. It was everything good about salami but with just the right tanginess. Marvelous!

-- A couple bags of shredded cheese (mozarella, of course, and a blend of five different types dubbed "Italian").

-- A red onion (which we used about half of, sliced thinly).

All in all, the bill (when you take into consideration that we used only a portion of most of the ingredients, and not counting the ingredients we had on hand) came in under $5. Where can you get a gourmet-style pizza for that price?

Originally posted to The Grub Report by Patricia Gibson on October 30, 2007 12:10 AM

Comments

At November 1, 2007 11:24 AM, Angie said...

We make pizza at our house each Friday night... I like the idea of using dabs of ricotta along with the mozzerella - thanks for the idea! (We use it in lasagna, and I like the other ideas you shared a few weeks ago, but I hadn't thought of pizza. Yum!)

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