There are two things that I am very much aware of. The first is that not everyone who reads A Squirrel in Babylon is a foodie. Regular readers are aware that I enjoy cooking, and I’ve been known to spend hours poring over a cookbook. Not everyone shares this passion, I told, but everybody has got to eat, right? Guess what? Cooking doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming. Not everyone has the time and inclination to make everything from scratch. Well, you don’t have to be a radical foodie to enjoy radically good food!
The second thing I understand is that money is tight for most people right now. We’re all on more limited budgets than we were a few years ago. One really good way that most families can save a few pennies is by cooking food themselves. Buying prepared foods is costly and eating meals out even more so.
Today, we’re going to make pizza. Not totally homemade… not even semi-homemade… but Not Quite Almost Semi-Homemade Pizza! And we’re making if for about the price of a frozen pizza: somewhere around $5.
Our ingredients are:
1 Boboli pizza crust
1 link of Italian sausage, cut into ½- inch pieces, browned and drained
1 slice of sandwich ham, cut into ½-inch pieces
6 or 7 black olives, sliced
Some pasta sauce (yes “some” – I didn’t measure it)
Some mozzarella cheese (yes “some” – see above)
Preheat your oven to 450°. Unwrap your pizza crust and place on a lightly-oiled pizza pan. Spread a light layer of cheese directly on the crust, then spoon your sauce onto the pizza and spread it around. I don’t measure it out; I just keep spooning on sauce until it looks about right. (Use as much or as little as you like. We like a lot of sauce.)
Next, add your toppings. As you can clearly see from the picture, this is very much a “his and her” pizza, with Mrs. Squirrel’s half getting ham and olives, while my half gets the Italian sausage. Have fun! Go wild! “Anything but the kitchen sink,” right?
Then top it with cheese. Again, I don’t measure it out; I just add cheese until it looks about right. (If you’re making a pepperoni pizza, you know the pepperoni goes on top of the cheese, right? Good.)
Bake at 450° for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes before cutting. Enjoy. (Oh, and I’ve been told that the leftovers reheat very nicely… I wouldn’t know…)
The Squirrel shall not live by
