Even without a thermomix, pizza dough is so easy and cheap to make. When the kids were really little, I used to cop out and use wraps as bases, but honestly… that’s a travesty. A good pizza needs a good base, so I love the pizza bases I make. Have a look at the ingredients – could it be cheaper?
2 tsps dry Yeast
220g lukewarm water
30g olive oil
1 tsp sugar (At the moment I’m using the sugar sachets I liberated from the motels I stayed in on my South Australian trip – SO EVEN CHEAPER!!!!!) heh heh…
420g bakers flour. (Though plain will do as well.)
1 tsp salt.
Sometimes, if I’m feeling fancy, I’ll put garlic, chilli and some fresh rosemary in there as well. (I freeze whole peeled garlic cloves and whole chillis and grow rosemary in wicking boxes – SO NO WASTE!!! EVEN CHEAPER!!!!!!!) Ok, I’ll stop now.
How thrifty is this? It costs literally mere cents to make this dough – enough for 4 or 5 pizzas, depending on how large you like them.
I keep the yeast in the freezer in the blue insulated thermos-y thing. It’s the yeast I bought a few days before our very first lockdown back in March 2020. Still going strong.
Oh! Did you notice the olive oil container? I bought that in San Gimignano in Italy on my 2015 trip. Another frugal tip – buy souvenirs that you’ll USE, not ones you merely look at. Nearly every day when I reach for the olive oil, I think of that trip.
Here’s the dough, just before I wrap it up in a silicon mat and put it near a heating vent. (It’s the middle of winter here in Melbourne.)
After an unfortunate incident when Poppy was a puppy, many years ago, we’ve learned that we have to keep dough that we’re proving up high.
There is a very strict rule in this house, brought in when the kids were little, that EVERY pizza must have green on it. No matter what else is happening in the garden, I always have leaves growing and so they must go on.
Edited to add – in the background is a ceramic tea caddy that I bought in Beijing when my friends Helen, Rick and I went to North Korea. Another useful souvenir!
Ryan26 is the pizza maker in this household. The toppings vary, depending on what’s in the fridge and the garden. This was last night’s effort.
Of course, I forgot to take a photo when he pulled them from the oven. I was starving. But we fed 2 adults an incredibly cheap, yet incredibly delicious dinner for 2 or 3 dollars at most.
And here’s the answer to Toni’s question in the last post.
I have a side-by-side fridge and freezer in the kitchen and the lowest basket is devoted to ice-cube sized portions of home-made pesto – which always goes on our pizzas – and balls of frozen pizza dough.
Ryan26 just divides up the dough after it’s risen and put’s individual-sized balls into freezer bags. They’re so handy if someone, such as an adult son who lives away from home, drops in and is starving. He can whip up a meal very quickly.
I also like it when it gets to around 5PM and I’m not in the zone for cooking. I just throw 2 frozen pizza dough balls onto the kitchen counter and by the time Ryan26 is ready to start cooking, the dough is ready to roll.
Some people recommend freezing them in flat discs so they’ll defrost quicker, but I don’t like the sound of that. How many times have you gone to the freezer to get a sheet of puff pastry, only to find that it’s broken? It’s a PIA. I’d rather it take a little more time to defrost and then you can roll it to to the size that you want.
Thanks, Toni, for asking the question. I got to have the night off from cooking last night. Love pizza nights!
Such good advice re the pizza bases. I used to do this and have gottena little lazy. Time to get back on track.
We’ll be pizza buddies. 🙂
Perfect – I love my homemade pizza dough but can’t make it in a 2-person serve and hate to waste, will definitely be freezing those excess portions going forwards
Excellent! It saves so much time and money to have them on hand.
The perfect fakeaway meal!
It is true, once you have tasted home made pizza’s you’ll never buy frozen ones again. Same goes for home made bread. I am in the middle of making baguettes for a BBQ with family tonight. Now making baguettes is a bit more of a fuzz but the taste is heaven, mmm with some tapenade or simple good oliveoil and coarse salt……I have frozen home made pizzasauce but never frozen the dough, so I will try that. Thanks.
What you’re doing sounds incredible. So delicious.
Hi there! I’m a newcomer comer to your blog all the way from Northern Cali :). Pizza night is my favorite too. I have a bread maker machine (that my mother in law bought for me) and all I have to do is throw the ingredients in and 1 hour later I have pizza dough!!
Gotta love our kitchen machines!
I noticed you paid for your salt. ? Once lock down is over, I highly recommend a trip to the pink salt lake (Pink Lake, Dimboola VIC 3414) for one of your monthly adventures. Take lots of big empty containers and your strongest son (the wet salt is heavy).
It is such a beautiful place and as much free pink salt as you can take! :))) It’s a four hour trip one way, so book a little cabin at the caravan park. Go to Dimboola pub for dinner. And make sure you watch the film Dimboola before you go and look for which landmarks still exist. (The pub burnt down, unfortunately.)
The Op shop had amazing cute old nick knacks in it but was only open early Saturday mornings. Although as a retired person, you can go mid week and actually get to see inside the Op Shop! 🙂
I’m looking forward to you loving this trip! Highly recommended.
H xx
That sounds AMAZING!!!!!!!