Frozen pizza and salad bar makes a cheap, gourmet dinner

Frozen pizza is so... pedestrian. It's not the crust, it's the toppings. Microscopic chips of peppers and mushrooms, a dusting of cheese, a disc or two of pepperoni. Just sad. But wait! There's a way to serve the family a respectable pizza for very little money: cheaper than takeout, less than delivery, certainly more affordable than in a restaurant. It takes two stops: the grocery store freezer section and the salad bar.

At the neighborhood grocery store, we studied our options. To make this work, we figured we had to start with a really cheap pizza.

"Molto bene!" The Tombstones were on sale, two for $8. We chose one pepperoni and one with both pepperoni and sausage. Right off the bat, we saved $5.98.

We headed for the salad bar, grabbed a clear plastic takeout box and hunted and pecked for little of this, a little of that: cherry tomatoes, cubed ham, green and red pepper rings, onions, black olives, green olives, sliced mushrooms, shredded mozzarella and hunks of feta cheese.

The takeout box was convenient since its little sections neatly corralled our choices and kept our grazings from jumbling up like a tossed salad. Everything on the bar was sold by weight for $3.29 per pound.

Then we spied the gourmet olive bar. "Molto, molto bene!" Of course these tender tidbits were pricier at $7.99 per pound, but we wouldn't need much to make an impact.

We grabbed a small container and filled it with a delectable assortment of whole sweet peppers, marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes in oil, roasted garlic cloves, and mixed olives, more olives tossed with little cubes of marinated feta.

The total for two pizzas with all our toppings came to $15.79, including tax.

We drove home and, on the way, hatched a plan to make everybody in the family happy with pizza exactly as they each like it.

In our kitchen, we preheated the oven to 400, just as the package instructions said, and we unwrapped both pizzas.

The man of the house likes sausage and pepperoni, so we started with that pizza, setting it on a pan.

With a knife and cutting board, we sliced and chopped our ingredients from the salad bar: cherry tomatoes, green and red pepper, onions, black and green olives, and mushrooms. We sprinkled on the ham and topped everything with a healthy layer of mozzarella.

We shoved it in the oven and added five extra minutes of cooking time to be sure all the added stuff got hot.

Then we turned our attention to the pepperoni pizza. We took half the meat off, setting it aside to snack on, cook's privilege.

We left the remaining pepperoni side untouched, since that's the way the urchette of the house likes it. On the other half, with the help of our knife and cutting board, we sliced and chopped and loaded on all the gourmet stuff: the artichoke hearts, the mixed olives, the sweet red peppers, the sun-dried tomatoes, the roasted toes of garlic. We finished with loads of feta cheese and the rest of the mozzarella.

Then that pizza headed for the oven.

The verdict was in about half an hour later.

The salad bar pizza was great. The man of the house hadn't expected much, not being a fan of frozen pies. But the crust was crisp and the toppings a tasty, interesting mix.

By then, even he was very interested to see the "gourmet" pizza come out of the oven. While the Urchette dug into her plain pepperoni half, he sliced through the artichokes, olives and feta, took a bite and hollered, "This is delicious!"

And it was. Since everything on this pizza had been marinated, it lent the pie an interesting, piquant flavor.

So, will we be experimenting now with various brands of shrink-wrapped and boxed frozen pies, various salad bar ingredients, serving dressed up frozen pizza on a hectic weeknight?

"Si!"

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2732, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com