My husband doesn’t always get to eat dinner with me and the girls during the week due to his work schedule, so I like to make a big deal out of dinner time on the weekends. We used to go out to dinner every Friday night, but we’ve put a stop to that treat as we work through some of our financial goals. But I still want to make our Friday dinner IN a fun, yet inexpensive family night.
This past Friday, we had a pizza night and all it cost me was $2.50.
I challenged myself to a pantry/freezer challenge in the month of May and after inventorying what I had on hand, I found some turkey pepperoni in my freezer, and a half jar of marinara sauce and a packet of yeast in the refrigerator.
Sounds like a pizza to me.
I was just missing our most favorite ingredient—the mozzarella cheese, but as luck would have it, my favorite shredded brand was on sale this week for $2.50.
I used the dough recipe for my homemade Stromboli. It has just 5 ingredients (yeast, flour, sugar, salt, olive oil) and it’s easy to mix together and knead. I made the dough in the morning before I left for work. When I came home for lunch, I punched down the risen dough and put it in the fridge until dinner prep. After kneading the dough again until smooth, I rolled it out and transferred it to my pizza stone. I layered on our toppings and I baked it in a 450 degree oven for about 13-15 minutes or until it was golden brown and baked through.
I served the pizza with fresh cantaloupe, homemade sugar-free applesauce and baby carrots.
It was a delicious, simple, and inexpensive Friday night IN.
