Frugal Friday!

Gourmet pizza on a budget!

One of the things that Matt got me for Mother's Day, was a gift card for Half-Priced Books.  We love this bookstore and it's fun to peruse through the gently-used books, dvds, and magazines for a fraction of the price as new.  I went there 2 weeks ago to spend my gift card and was able to get 2 movies, 3 books, 3 Real Simple magazines, and still had money left over.  While looking though one of the Real Simple magazines, I came across a way to make gourmet pizza on a budget.  (October 2011)

This peaked my interest because every friday night, we have "family pizza and movie night" where we get a pizza, rent a redbox or borrow a library dvd and pop popcorn.  Warrick loves this tradition and usually starting wednesday of each week he'll start asking "is tonight family pizza movie night?"  We usually get a take-and-bake pizza from Papa Murphy's but every once in a while I'll make a pizza instead.  So when I saw this article I was excited to try something new.

The article had a couple different recipes.  This is the one I used.

Begin with a frozen cheese pizza (I got a Jack's pizza at Kroger for $2.99)
In a bowl, toss 1 1/2 cups of broccoli florets (I had frozen broccoli in the freezer) together with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tsp each salt and pepper.  Scatter over the frozen pizza.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of crumbled goat cheese and bake according to the package directions.  I went to the store to buy goat cheese, which I had never purchased before.  I realized it might be a little more expensive than normal cheese, but it was a lot more than I thought.  I bought a very small amount and it was $4.76 because it was $13.99 lb!  But even with the expensive cheese, I spent a little less than $9 making this which is still less than any gourmet pizza or delivery!