As I've mentioned before, it took me a good while to try out pre-made pizza doughs and recipes for pizza dough, but I finally found one that I liked. I've read some money-saving and cooking blogs that say you can even buy dough from a great pizza joint you know. I think I'm happier making my own because then I don't have to run out any time I feel like pizza. I should already have the ingredients for the dough on hand.

Because I buy the packaged yeast, I make two recipes of dough at the same time, which is a great time-saver for later because I can just freeze the dough for another week.

I've almost always had trouble with any crust because I seemed to either burn it or get it undercooked. This time, I took a couple steps to prevent a recurrence of such disasters. I actually separated the dough in three equal parts to make smaller pizzas. We still managed to eat our fill and have leftovers for Paul to take to work for lunch the following day. It just means when we have pizza again, it will be smaller and we'll get to supplement with something else.

The other step I took to have a better cooked crust was to flip the crust over halfway through pre-baking. Those steps seemed to do the trick as the crust was vastly improved. Now all I need to do is figure out why I can't seem to spread it out in a perfect rectangle. . .

Since we're still in the "eating what you've got" phase, I sprinkled a few leftover broccoli florets and sliced black olives on my half. Paul got the sweet peppers and vegetarian chicken. You can see in the photo a stray olive made it onto Paul's plate, too.

In case you think you can buy dough either from a pizza restaurant or on the shelf at the grocer cheaper than making your own, I've calculated my cost so you can compare it.

Cost to Make Pizza Dough-Doubled Recipe

• $0.10 Yeast (Walmart)
• $0.54 Flour (Aldi)
• $0.44 Olive Oil (Publix)
• $0.01 Salt (Walmart)
• $1.09 Total for 2 large pizzas

Tips for keeping the rest of the pizza cheap:

• Watch for olives to go on sale and then add a coupon. That's pretty common.
• Make your own sauce. Canned tomatoes are often BOGO at Publix, add a coupon for a great deal.
• Try a different cheese. When our mozzarella runs out, I got Jarlsburg at a steal that will substitute nicely.
• Sprinkle leftover vegetables around the pie as "filler". Even a few broccoli florets (corn, spinach leaves, etc.) will add substance to the pizza and be an extra topping to take the place of a topping that isn't so prevalent.
• Grow and dry your own herbs for fabulous seasoning.