A key to living a great life and reaching Financial Independence (FI) is to find the activities that truly make you happy and make them priorities. The purpose of this article to to focus on one activity that I am passionate about:
Making Pizza
I am not about to convert to being a food blogger, but this culinary act represents a nearly perfect example of lifestyle optimization. How does making pizza help me lead a better life and reach FI? I could write a few paragraphs about it, but as an engineer, I figure I can do one better…. a Venn Diagram:
Let’s touch on the areas of the diagram.
Food
Pretty self-explanatory right? Pizza is food. Got it.
But would you believe me if I told you that you can make better tasting pizza at home than you can get from most of the pizza chains? Well you can. I will lay out my recipe in a little bit, but in a nutshell, here is the key:
A top quality crust is a must. As is a blazing hot oven.
When you “roll your own” you have complete control of the ingredients, so you never have to worry about what someone else is throwing in there. This can be vital if you have food allergies or special dietary needs. If you want to go all-organic, go for it. You can be as traditional or adventurous as you want.
Family
Making pizza from scratch is no quick feat. It takes time to mix the dough, proof the yeast, roll the dough out and build your pie. It’s best suited for a weekend or day off. But all of these actions can be done together with your spouse, friends or kids. It’s a great opportunity to get away from the TV, phone, tablet, email, etc. and have a conversation. In our house, our 4-year old will add all the ingredients to the mixer, then roll, sauce, cheese and top her own personal pizza. We use the time to teach her about cooking and discuss what the various ingredients are and where they come from. Talk about quality daddy-daughter time! Looking for an outside-the-box date night idea? How about a “Build your own pie” night?
Saving Money
A call to the local pizza delivery chain store typically results in a bill of about $20. for a couple pies Say you order pizza twice a month, or twenty-four times a year. You are looking at an annual pizza budget of $480. I suspect this number is probably low compared to many families.
For the average annual pizza purchase scenario, you could save about $270 the first year if you made the pies yourself! The savings would jump to $325 in year 2.
Here’s how that breaks down:
First, the special equipment purchases for year one (yes, these are affiliate links, but I own these and love them)
A pizza stone = $30 – you don’t NEED this, but I firmly believe it results in a superior pizza over non-stoned pizza.
A pizza peel = approx. $23 – to transport the pies from the counter to the pizza stone and back.
Equipment subtotal: $53
I am assuming you have a mixer and a rolling pin.
Here is the ingredient cost for 2 – 12-inch pepperoni pizzas
|
(note there is a small amount of sugar, salt, and oil included in the recipe, but the quantities are so small and these items are commonly found in the pantry, so I am disregarding them here)
Total for 2 pies: $7.72
Grand total (pies plus equipment): $60.72
Year 1 DIY total: $7.72*24 + $60.72 = $207.32
Pizza delivery costs ($20*24) = $480
Savings Year 1: $480-207.32 = $272.68
Savings Year 2: $480-185.28 (dropping the $53 equipment costs) = $325.68
Not too shabby right?
My Current Recipe:
- 3 cups of flour (preferably King Arthur Bread Flour, but the All-Purpose works well too)
- Roughly 2.5 tbsp of olive oil
- 1/4 ounce (1 packet) of active yeast
- A heavy pinch of salt (I prefer Kosher)
- 1 tbsp of white sugar
- 1/2 cup warm water (around 100 degrees)
- 1/2 cup cold water
- 1/2 pizza sauce (during the summer I often make my own with fresh tomatoes, but store-bought is fine
- 8 ounces fresh whole-milk mozzarella
- 3 ounces of pepperoni
- About 1/2 cup of corn meal
This has evolved over time but essentially I started with Bobby Flay’s recipe. Here are the players in the dough game:
Here’s how I do it:
- Get your dough started at least 3 hours prior to pizza construction. You can do this a day or two beforehand as well.
- Start by making a yeast starter by mixing 1/2 cup of bread flour, the sugar, yeast, and warm water.
- Let this sit 10-15 minutes until it gets foamy. It will look like this:
- Start mixing and add in the rest of the flour, 2 Tbsp of oil and the cold water. Mix until it it becomes one mass that pulls away from the sides of the bowl, like so:
- Use your hands to roll the dough into a ball. Add the remaining oil to lubricate a bowl for proofing. Be sure to coat the dough with the oil. Cover the bowl with a plate.
- Place in a warm oven to proof for 1 hour. Many ovens have a proof setting. If not, simply preheat the oven (any temperature) for 1 minute, then shut off the oven.
- After 1 hour, take the dough out of the oven. It should be doubled in size. Punch it down and cover with a towel. Punch it down again when it doubles in size a second time.
- Start preheating the oven (with the pizza stone in it!) to 500 degrees. Let it preheat up to temp then sit at least 30 mins. This is important if you want a crispy crust… don’t skimp here! I usually start preheating an hour before I plan to put the pizzas in.
- Clean the flat surface for rolling the dough and toss with flour. Coat a rolling pin in flour as well.
- Cut your dough ball into 2 equal portions and roll out to approximately 12 to 14 inches in diameter each. Make it as thin or thick as you want, but in my experience, the thinner crust has produced the best results.
- Spread out corn meal on an open patch of counter, pick up your dough and and set it on the corn meal. This is critical to ensure you can get the pizza onto and off of the pizza peel. Ask me how I know this. Skip this step and the whole thing turns into a nightmare of smashed pizza and toppings burning on the bottom of the oven.
- Time for the toppings. Here is the crew for this batch:
- Spread the sauce. Don’t over sauce as it can really detract from the pizza, in my opinion. In fact, I sometimes skip it in lieu of olive oil and fresh tomatoes.
- Spread the cheese. Mozzarella is the far and away #1 most popular choice, but I have thrown a number of cheeses on my pies. A good combo is ricotta and mozzarella if you want something different.
- Top with pepperoni.
- Scoop up the pizza on the peel and deposit onto the pizza stone. Again, make sure there is corn meal on the peel. Otherwise, you will end up with half the pizza on the stone with the other half stuck to the peel.
- Cook about 10-12 minutes and take them out with the peel.
- Bon appetit!
Do you have a good Za recipe? Any feedback or tips are welcome.