Friday night and feet up with a pizza

Hello Readers,

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We've made it through another week, pull up a cuppa, put your feet up and take the night off. I wondered how much a 'delivered' pizza costs. We sometimes buy pizza in Lidl or Aldi, when they are so cheap it would be silly not to buy one. Every time I do, it's total let down. Limp and sugary bread, dripping with fat and overly salted. Well, in Domino's a large pizza costs £15.99. For that, I want it cooked in front of me by Gino D'Campo! Dressed, as he was on 'This Morning'. On that note, I remembered why I always make my own. A £20 takeaway a week, over the year adds up to £1040..............so when you're frugalling away at home, just remember what you are saving.

I love it, the presenters looked anywhere but at him! So funny.

My homemade pizza costs 38p a portion. Here's how I do it. As Jamie Oliver would say, "Get your 30 minute meals head on" so get your oven on and set it to 200.

 Follow your bread maker's instructions for a 750g loaf and whilst it's mixing and needing, grate the cheese, slice any thing you like to go on your pizza. Have it all ready.

 Roll out your dough on a floured board. I don't let any thing stand or rise, I just roll it and get on with it.

 You get the drift..............roll it to the size of the pan you have to fit.

 Rub one side with a smear of olive oil and place that, oily side down on a baking tray. Mine has holes in it, so it cooks really well.

 Finish by pushing the dough into the final shape you would like. It's fine if it's thin.

 Use a third of a jar of pasta sauce. Any kind will do. We bought a stock pile the last time we went to Asda and they had it on offer.

 Now chuck anything you like on top. We often use pilchards, tuna, just veg, any meat, including left over chicken. Anything goes on our pizzas.

 Here it it! Loaded with lovely cheap goodies.

 Now the cheese, we actually only needed half of this and the rest went back into the fridge.

 A final finish with a sprinkle of black pepper and it's into the oven for 30 minutes. Be warned though, your oven is different from mine so that's only a rough guide.

 Take out of the oven, slide onto a chopping board and cut into four. A Quarter each tonight and the rest wrapped in foil for tomorrow night's 'tea'. Here are the costs: Flour 15 p, onion 6p, yeast 10p, tomatoes 20p, green pepper 10p, ham 30p, sauce 28p, cheese 30 - total for a homemade pizza = £1.49. it took 15 minutes to make and 30 minutes to cook and was 38p per portion.

We don't need more. We don't need takeaways. We don't 'deserve' a bottle of wine and a meal on a weekend. The simplest pleasure of cooking a quick, tasty and cheap meal, to be eaten with fingers in front of the TV is all the reward I need. Tomorrow I will be treated, quite literally, like a Queen as we're off to Foster Mummy's for lunch and a womble around the local charity shops. I'm already excited about someone else cooking me lunch and when it's a wonderful as Foster Mummy's, we know we're in for a treat. Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs