Use It Up...or Do Without

 I often read a blog called The Nonconsumer Advocate. While I'm not at all committed to "The Compact," I think it is an admirable idea and I enjoy reading about Katie's journey. And while we are trying to cut back and buy only necessities this month, I ran into a challenge that Katie's motto, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." led me to a solution. These little jams make me question exactly what is a "necessity." I'm sure there will be many more similar situations as the month (or two?) wears on.

Our favorite pizza crust mix is Jiffy brand. It's the little blue and white box that I most closely associate with cornbread mix. Step-Daughter believes it to be the best homemade pizza crust. I like it because its cheap and easy. We are out and I had it on my grocery list the week before we decided to only buy necessities*. However, I couldn't find any kind of pizza crust mix anywhere in Aldi.

So on to plan B, pizza crust is mostly just flour, water, and yeast, right? I've made it from those ingredients before and can do it again, no problem. Except, the only yeast I have is for the bread machine. I'm sure there are recipes for pizza dough made in the bread machine but my bread machine is at my mother-in-law's house.

So on to plan C. I asked the almighty Google about the yeast question. The website www.thefreshloaf.com says that bread machine yeast is exactly the same as instant yeast and I found a recipe for instant yeast pizza dough on that website.

Instant Yeast Pizza Dough
Makes 4 10-inch pizza crusts
5 cups all-purpose flour ($0.50)
1 tablespoon sugar ($0.02)
2 teaspoons salt ($0.01)
1 teaspoon yeast ($0.06)
2 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon oil ($0.06)
1 3/4 to 2 cups room temperature water


Mix all the ingredients except for the 1 tablespoon oil. Set dough to rise for 5 minutes. Stir again 3-5 minutes. Add more flour/water if needed. Divide into 4 balls. Oil 4 freezer bags with the remaining tablespoon of oil. Put one dough in each bag and freeze.

To make the crust, thaw a dough in the refrigerator the evening before. Remove from the refrigerator one hour prior to using. Preheat oven to 450. Spread out pizza dough and top. Bake until done, 8-10 minutes.

Price: I can usually find a Jiffy pizza dough mix for about 50 cents. The total for all the ingredients is 65 cents. Divide that by 4 and the cost of dough for one crust is about 16 cents. As far as time to mix up the ingredients, it is about the same. The only difference is that you have to plan ahead enough to take the dough out of the freezer to thaw and bring it to room temperature.

What I spent today: $35.32 for tolls and gas
Total since Monday:  $1078.04