Eating on the Cheap!

In an earlier post (here) I shared how I meal plan and shop for a week of groceries.  I had a request from my girl Amber over at The Binkertation for my favorite recipe on a budget.  While I don't really have a favorite per se, I did cook up a delicious and healthy meal the other night that was a big hit here at Wilted Acres!  So without further adieu, I give you my budget friendly pizza...

I started off by using this recipe for the crust.  It's a whole wheat crust that was pretty tasty.  No one complained so I call that a success!  Next, the Hubs spread the dough around on our pizza stone.  I could do it but it just makes me mad to stretch it.  It ends up with holes and I ended up swearing so it was really for the best. :-)

I could never figure out how he was able to get the crust on pan without swearing so perfectly until I saw him using a smooth plastic tumbler as a "rolling pin."  I told him he was a genius and that I was going to blog about his brilliant idea.  Next he scored the dough with the fancy tool that he got from a pizza place years ago so that the sauce gets down into the dough.

 Next we added our pizza sauce that is actually nothing more than spaghetti sauce.  I learned that trick many years ago when I took home economics in middle school (Thanks, Mrs. Arnold!).  At $0.99 a can it was much cheaper than pizza sauce AND we could make 2 pizzas from one can of sauce!

Next I snuck on some sliced zucchini from the garden.  I was able to get an extra serving of veggies on there without altering the taste too much. (Hint: hide it under the cheese!)

 I thought we had pepperoni in the fridge but the Hubs had commandeered it during a late night snack raid.  I was too lazy to go out and buy more so I just used what we had on hand.  This included some bacon that I had leftover from another dinner night.  I just put a couple of slices on a plate in between some layers of paper towel and microwaved it for about 2 minutes (more or less).  I also added some ham (lunch meat) and sweet Lebanon bologna since we had both on hand. We also sliced up an onion (I always buy a bag to keep for recipes as most of what I seem to cook calls for onion of some type.)

I also thought I would share my tip for saving money on cheese.  I very rarely buy pre-shredded cheese.  The Hubs and I got a food processor for a wedding gift and I have used it to grate cheese ever since.  It saves us a bundle!

The final ingredient to our pizza was black olives.  I absolutely LOVE black olives on my pizza.  The Hubs?  Not so much.  At first Babycakes was not an olive fan either until I introduced her to olive eating 101.  You put them on your fingers!  She is now an olive fan.  

So let me break down the cost:

Dough (I had all ingredients in my pantry)  $0
Zucchini (from the garden)  $0
Pizza/Spaghetti Sauce $0.50 (since I had enough sauce for 2 pizzas)
Cheese ($1.88) (I only used half of that block)
Meats $0 (since I used what we already had left over)
Olives $0.99
Onions $0
Total Cost for Pizza:  $3.37
We also had some left over for lunch the next day.  I would say that was a budget friendly dinner!