Cheap Eats—Yum!!!!

We all hear about food and fuel prices going up. The following are two recipes that will show you how to tame that food budget and also save on buying fuel and driving in this heat.

How ‘bout homemade pizza? Instead of running to any of our local pizza places, you can make one anytime. Get a large plastic bowl that has a lid. Add to the bowl 1 cup warm water, then add 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar. Now stir a bit and let it set while you gather other ingredients

If your yeast has enough spunk, this water, yeast and sugar will begin to get thick. This is good. Now dump in 2 1/2 cups plain flour, 2 tablespoons of oil, 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix well.

This pizza dough can stay in your refrigerator for up to five days. So experiment with the amount you will need to use for small up to extra large pizzas. For some variations you might add some chopped oregano or minced garlic to the dough mixture.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. You can make a small to extra large pizza with this dough recipe. Take out a handful of the pizza dough, add some oil to your hands and begin to stretch the dough into the size you want. Make it really thin for a crisp pizza or if you like thick pizza just don’t stretch the dough out so much.

Now place dough into oven to lightly brown it. The dough will rise more in the oven. After browning, put a thin coat of canned tomato sauce on top of dough, spread it out good, can be plain or one with garlic and green peppers. Next, put pepperoni slices or any of your favorite toppings over the top of the tomato sauce and take shredded or slices of mozzarella and place over the pepperoni. Ready to bake. and eat as soon as the cheese melts and is lightly browned. Estimated cost of pizza—2 1/2 cups plain flour, 26 cents; oil. 2 tablespoond, 10 cents; salt, 2 cents; tomato sauce. 20 cents; cheese, 50 cents. Total cost for medium pizza to serve up to six is approximately $1.20.

To add a cool dessert to your cheezy pizza meal is cheap Key Lime pie. For this dessert you will need an eight ounce container of store brand whipping cream, one can of sweetened condensed milk, a package of lemon-lime Koolaid or similar. To make, use a plastic container with a lid, mix sweetened condensed milk and whole container of Cool Whip, mix well, then add the lemon-lime Koolaid, if you have it, put a few teaspoons of lemon juice, mix well. Put it in the refrigerator getting it ready to add to the graham cracker crust.

To make the graham cracker crust, crush 1 or 2 tubes of graham crackers, a stick of butter softened and a tablespoon of sugar. Mash up really good and put into a pie pan, making sure to mash mixture up the sides of the pie pan. You can put the pie crust in a low temperature oven for just a few minutes. Afterwards spoon your pie filling into the graham cracker crust, refrigerate. Don’t expect to have any leftover pie.

Cost for pie—8 oz. Cool Whip, $1.07; can of sweetened condense milk, $2.05; package of Koolaid, 28 cents; graham cracker crust, bought $1.26 which may be cheaper and less work for sure. Total cost for pie to serve 6 to 8- $4.66.

For less than $2 per person you can enjoy a delicious pizza and a cool dessert.

Have a safe July 4th.