Frugal Friendly Foods: Delicious Homemade Pizza from Food Storage for Less Than $50 a Year

Is inflation taking a bite out of your budget? This one's for you. Hey Provident Preppers, I'm Jonathan. And I'm Kinney. And today we have something really special for you because I went to the store the other day and I kind of freaked out because all of a sudden everything just costs so much more at the grocery store. And when Jonathan and I were trying to figure out what we could do to bless your lives, we decided that maybe you could benefit from our years of raising 11 children on a very small budget and learning how to live and to cook with very little. So we've come up with this little video series that we're going to do. It's the Frugal Friendly Foods. And with that, we're going to kind of teach you some of the ways that we've been able to eat for significantly less money. And today we're going to talk about pizza because if you go to the store, the restaurant to buy pizza, even the cheapest pizza you can get is almost $7 and it can go clear up to $30. And when you look at feeding a family like that, that translates into a lot of money. So today we're going to teach you how to make pizza from scratch. And I had Jonathan run some numbers. Of course, I'm the numbers guy. He is the numbers guy. And kind of share with you exactly how much it would cost to do it from scratch versus some of the other options that are out there. So my part was to figure out just talking about the crust and mostly the flour because the flour is the biggest part of this. But just for you to go buy the flour at the store, that amount for one year, get this one year, for one night a week, what for an entire year is only going to run you probably about 12 bucks. Is that based on current based on current prices? So you can see that you can save a tremendous amount of money just by doing some of this on your own from scratch and making it probably healthier than you would get at the restaurants. Yeah. And more to your preference. So those numbers actually calculated for two 12 inch thin crust pizzas. Now there's so many different variables, right? Between the size and how thick you like it and all that. But when you look at that and then if you were to purchase the same Boboli pizza crust at the supermarket, that one would be $442 for the year. If you do the like the Walmart brand ready-made thin crust, that one was $230 for the year. And the boxes of pizza crust mix are now, you know, the little bags of pizza crust mix. That one came out to be $104 a year. And that compared to what John? About $12 a year. So, and of course you're, we're going to add just a little bit of oil and a little bit of sugar and salt, but those things, even with those, we're probably talking $15 a year for you to do this yourself. And at a time when inflation is really hurting a lot of people, I think we need to take a look at this as a good option. Yeah. And so let's get busy making some pizza. John, you can come back when it's time to put the toppings on. Okay. All right. And eat. And eat. So now I'm going to cover a couple of different ways because as I've been reading through the comments, I've noticed that there are many people out there who've never made bread before. And so this can seem just huge and you could totally make it by hand, but I actually prefer to use a mixer. Now, one of the things that you can do is use something like this bread machine over here. This is a Zojirushi and it is fantastic. And one of the reasons why I love it is because I just have to dump all the ingredients in, push a few buttons and it does all the work itself. And it will also make the dough. So we're going to make our first batch of dough in this, but we're talking about costs, right? If you have the financial resources to buy something like this, fantastic. But if you don't, what I would recommend that you do, if you want a bread maker like this or a bread machine like this, because what it does is it mixes all the bread, lets it raise, and then it cooks it all like this one. It's all in this same pot. And all you have to do is later go and dump out a loaf of beautiful bread. But when the kids went away to college, they needed to be able to cook some of their own bread. And so what we did is we searched online classifieds and garage sales so that we could find one for a really cheap price and they're out there. So while we're trying to be more frugal, know that you don't always have to buy something new. I'll leave a link if this is something that you want and you have the resources to buy it new, but just know that that shouldn't limit you. You can find one of these for probably, well, I don't know if you can find this brand, but you can find a bread machine for probably 40 or $50 someplace, either in a Facebook marketplace or some online classified. Okay, now I'm going to show you my favorite recipe for a pizza dough. But the one thing I want to talk to you about first is that we're going to make this with all white flour, but you could totally, in order to make it more nutritious, you could use all whole wheat flour, but sometimes that's a little bit heavy, but you could use half and half. You could use up to a quarter in bean flour or vegetable flour. So this is the only thing you're eating, right? We're trying really hard to maintain the nutrition and we really need to expand from just that white flour if you're not getting it in other places. So don't be afraid to experiment with some other kinds of grains and flours in this, but today we're only going to be using the white flour. So for this recipe, I have one cup of nice warm water, right? We don't want it to burn you, but we want it to be really nice and warm. And we're going to use one tablespoon of oil, one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of sugar. So I'm going to put in the flour next. So we're going to do two and a half cups of flour. One, two, and it might change depending on the moisture that's actually in the air, but the yeast that I'm going to use, it is, hold on. Okay. The yeast that I'm going to use is an instant yeast. So I don't need to proof it first. Sometimes the recipe will tell you that you need to soak it in a little bit of water with sugar for a little while before, but because this is instant yeast, I don't need to do that. So this takes two and a half teaspoons. This is a Bosch mixer, and it's my favorite for making bread. And now all I'm do is turn it on and let it mix. As long as the consistency is right, I might have to add a little bit more flour to it. Probably not, but the consistency should be great. And in about three minutes, this will be done. This is what you want it to look like. It's a beautiful soft dough. It's a little bit moist. I prefer to keep my doughs a little bit more moist because I think it makes them not as tough. If you, the bread's too thick, right? It's got too much flour on it. It's just too tough and it's heavy and all that. So what we're going to do is we're just going to set this aside and let it raise. And I'm just going to show you how I would do this with whole wheat flour. So this is whole wheat flour that we just barely ground, right? And then we're going to use one cup of the whole wheat flour. And this, I just barely ground it. So if you've got wheat in your storage, this is a great way to use it up on a regular basis. And then one white and a half of white for a total of two and a half cups of flour. And we're just going to let this mix, but let it mix a little bit longer. So probably closer to five minutes. Okay. This dough, the whole wheat or not whole wheat. Okay. It's half whole wheat, half white. It's actually beautiful. You can tell there's a lot of elasticity in this. That's exactly what we want. And so I've got the oven preheating because there is a pizza stone in there. You don't need to use a pizza stone, but we're going to let these raise until they're doubled. And then I will start with the white and I'll let the boys do their own toppings. Before we do that, let's talk about the toppings so that you can have such a huge variety of toppings that are shelf stable so that they can be on the shelf for a long time. And in fact, let's talk about these for a second. I just pulled this out of my freezer. So this is shelf stable when before it's open after it's open, then you have to keep it in the refrigerator or freezer. We don't use pepperoni very often. And so I keep it in the freezer so that I can pull it out. But same thing like these bacon bits, they're actually shelf stable. So you only have to put them in the fridge after you open them. So they're kind of a good thing. The mozzarella cheese or the cheese blends that you might use on pizza need to be refrigerated and they can be a bit expensive, but Parmesan cheese is shelf stable. And in fact, I just bought a bunch to stock up on at Costco because it was on sale for a great price. And so you just need a little bit on the pizza to add a lot of flavor. So you might be able to skip the cheese altogether, making the pizza significantly less expensive, but still tasting really good. You can put all kinds of different vegetables. There's all amazing amounts of combinations that you can use. And then there are dessert pizzas and the dessert pizzas are what are going to be really fun. And we'll do some of those in a few minutes. Okay. The noise you hear in the background is the Zojirushi actually kneading the bread dough for the dessert pizzas. Now, Sam decided he wanted a thick crust pizza. So you can see this is doubled the dough. It's beautiful. It feels great. It's elastic. It's absolutely perfect. Okay. So we have a TempKast masonry heater. And because of that, it has this beautiful oven in the top of it, and we can cook on the top. And so we've got some of the fancy stuff for pizzas because we like to do that, but you don't need that. So Sam decided that he wanted a thick crust instead of a thin crust. So we're going to put some corn meal on here. So to help it kind of not stick, and then you can just push it out with your hands if you want, or you can use the rolling pin, which is what I like to do. Just put a little bit of oil on there. And then we're going to, and while we do this, Sam, tell us why you picked the flavor combinations that you did. All right. So I am very much. Are you okay? Maybe. I am very much a meat and fruit kind of guy. I enjoy having meat, but I also love the sweetness that comes from fruit. And so yes, pineapple does belong on pizza, not to get political or anything, but pineapple does belong on pizza. I will stand by that till the day I die. So what I'm doing, I'm just doing a classic marinara sauce with some pepperoni, some bacon bits, and some olives. And now I'm going to just poke holes in the top of this because the pizza will bubble. And then all the toppings slide and are a little bit crazy. So I prefer to have the toppings just kind of all throughout. You can see that the dough is absolutely beautiful, right? And you can get all kinds of creative. Go ahead, Sam. Just whatever you want to do. Now, if you, this was actually more expensive than like these cans of pizza sauce. So if you're really looking at being cost-effective, you might want to either do homemade or go to the cans. And I always watch for things to be on sale, right? And I stuck up on it. But if you can see, so this pizza that he's doing took maybe a fifth of this bottle and however much sauce you want, that's totally up to you. Nevermind. It just took a quarter of the bottle. Sam decided to cheat. He wants to make his more expensive and non shelf stable and use some cheese. But like I said, the Parmesan cheese can help make it really inexpensive. And if you're only looking for shelf stable, you can do freeze dried cheese. This is a commercial brand. We have freeze dried a lot of our own. In fact, you can see us making the pizza. If you click the card in the corner, I'll show you the pizza that I made with freeze dried cheese. And it actually turned out really, really good. Homemade crust is the best. It's just the best. Oh, that's a lot of cheese. Hey, there's twice as much cost in his cheese as there is in the pizza dough. Just so you know, that's okay. We can live with that. Okay. We had a little accident putting that into the oven, so it's not going to be as beautiful as it could be, but still the same. Look, I mean, this is, this is beautiful. It's all nice and elastic. We're going to put this time. We're going to do it on parchment paper. So I don't have the same little problem. So it's not going to be as beautiful as it would have been had I just put it on the stone, but that's okay. Cause John love it now. Okay. John's pizza. He likes the whole wheat flour. So this is the one that's half whole wheat, half white, right? And then tell him about your toppings. He's okay. So Sam had to have the cheese, even though this is supposed to be a shelf stable kind of video and John is cheating too, but, but I'm very much into the vegetables. So, and the fruit, I agree with Sam on the fruit. Pineapples. Great. I love olives, onions, peppers. I really, really like the vegetarian pizza. So that's what we're doing today. I need my fork. And John doesn't like, um, cheese, right? And so he doesn't eat foods that have cheese on it or dairy usually. So his is very different and that's kind of just goes to show that you can do this for any, anybody in your family. You could even use gluten-free flour and make gluten-free pizzas, or you could use part oats in it or pretty much anything you want to do. So let's see how you work your magic, Johnny. Okay. All right. So the pizza is out of the oven now. Um, although we had that issue getting it into the oven, we, I think we averted the crisis for the most part. Um, the olives look great. The pepperoni look great. The pineapple looks super, super good. All right. So now keep in mind that this is, this is cheap homemade pizza. Um, this is something that you make from pretty simple, pretty standard ingredients. Um, it's still really hot, but mom says it's time for a taste test. So that's what we're going to do. That's really good. I think the crust is amazing. It's better than anything you can get at, you know, your standard Papa John's pizza hut, whatever. Um, honestly, that's pretty good. Okay. So how about breadsticks? Okay. So this is the bread dough that was made in the, oops, Zujirushi and the bread machine. Those are little things that turn it in there. And, um, it's beautiful and soft and quite frankly, it it's gorgeous. And it beeped after it had finished rising. So I'll put that back in there for the dessert pizza, but this one, what about the bread? Are you just sitting there eating while I'm working? Can you pass the ranch? Okay. So what about the breadsticks? This pizza dough can very easily be made cinnamon sticks or breadsticks or anything like that. So for the breadsticks, I'm just going to add a little bit of garlic salt and some, you can just use Parmesan cheese. This happens to be the Italian blend that has some Romano in it that doesn't want to stay open. And then since he contaminated that with the red sauce, I'll just use a regular pizza cutter. And I'm just going to take that pizza cutter and roll this. And then just like that, we're just going to let this raise and then I'll slide it in the oven on the pizza stone and bake it. And that's all it is for the breadsticks. Super easy. But now let's move on to the dessert pizza. Are you enjoying yourself? I am. I am. Okay. So with the other half, I'm going to do the dessert pizza and okay. You're only limited by your imagination. Do you see one of my favorite pizzas is actually the broth, not broccoli. No, it's not the broccoli is the barbecue chicken. Or I love the one with Alfredo sauce and artichoke hearts and spinach and fresh tomatoes. All of that is just like super, super yummy. So this one, um, all I'm going to use for it is some homemade preserves. And this is actually some frosting. That's a cream cheese frosting that I made for cinnamon rolls the other day, and I didn't use it all up. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to roll this out. I'm going to spread that on, put this yummy, yummy berry syrup on it that we made all from our garden, right? And then we'll bake it and see how that turns out. So Sam liked his pizza, but what about John? I mean, pizza without any cheese, something's sick and wrong, huh? Just kind of second wrong. Um, so you are only limited when it comes to toppings by your imagination. Well, and, and your resources, right? But think about all the different things that you could do. This bread recipe is so good for just basic, amazing food. Now that one, that recipe turned out better than the one in the Zojirushi. So what I would do next time is I would just put that recipe in the machine and make it. So Johnny and the wheat crust. It's very good. Honestly. Very good. The crust and all the toppings, which I must say can all be shelf stable, right? Well, yeah. Things like that or from the garden. It's even better. Fresh. Yeah. Just make sure you slice them really thin, right? Because the pizza, it's got a really short cook time and the pizza stone makes that crust on the bottom really nice. And I think that's one of the things that John likes is he likes that crusty kind of robust thing. Yeah. So extremely good. So the price of this is incredibly reasonable for less than 20 bucks. You could have one of these pizzas every week for an entire year. So that's a really, that's, that's frugal, right? I know it takes more work and the toppings are extra, but you can be seriously creative and create some really fun foods. And now for the question of the day, what? Say it Johnny. Say it. You got to say it Johnny. Frugal, friendly foods. Can you share with us? What recipes do you have that people will just love? Comment below and thanks for being part of the solution. And say that three times really fast. Frugal, friendly foods. Frugal, friendly foods. Frugal, friendly foods.