Homemade pizza dough

Now that I've been couponing and saving for a while, I'm looking for alternative ways to cut our spending even more, and I believe I've found a great way to do so. I can't believe it took me so long, but a gift of a Kenwood mixer from my sweet mama really kicked me into gear.

So what is this new saving method? Homemade pizza dough, of course! I know, I know, all of you experienced bakers and fabulous home-keeping moms must be rolling your eyes at me, but a Betty Crocker I am not, so this is huge for me. Usually when we have pizza, it's take out, which can definitely add up.

I thought I'd try 2 recipes at once for variety, and chose a thick, chewy crust recipe and a thin crust one. I followed these dough recipes pretty closely and I was really happy with both, so I thought I'd share with you if you were looking for pizza dough recipes.

I can't believe I baked 3 pizza pies (1 ham/cheese, 1 hawaiian and 1 ham/veggie) while watching the Canadian Mens' Hockey team take on the US team, but just like the gold medal, the pizza turned out golden.

I used the first recipe to make a large thick crust pizza and I loved how thick and chewy it was. If you love more dough vs toppings, this one's for you. I split the 2nd recipe into 2 balls of dough and made 2 thin crust pizzas which were delicious and crisp.

I spent $12 on the toppings which included ham, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, onions, red peppers and pizza sauce, so $4 per pizza is pretty cheap - especially since we all had several pieces each for lunch, and there's almost 2 whole pizzas left. I also have onions, half a block of mozzarella cheese, some ham and 3 red peppers left over. Great value, and what a great way to save. I'm really looking forward to to making more of these and I can see us saving so much more already. These really are easy to make up on the day you are needing them, but I'm planning on making extras for freezing as well.

If you're looking for a quick breadsticks recipe, this one turned out great for me as well.

Happy baking your way to savings!