[SupplySider]

I have helped a friend cut her family food budget nearly in half this summer by teaching her how to make some of the family favorites (like lasagna) at home instead of buying frozen ones. I took the amount of money she was going to spend on frozen lasagnas and purchased meet, cheese, pasta, onions, and tomatoes and a couple of disposable foil pans. We then spent a day putting together the pans of lasagna she then put in her freezer. The same amount of money she would have spent on 3 meals of frozen store-bought lasagna provided her family with 9 meals of homemade.

I'm saving a fortune by making my own pizza from scratch, including the sauce, crust, and cheese. I've got the routine down to about 20 minutes, as much time as it would take to go to the Hut and back. To make the cheese just boil a quart of milk, dump in the juice of a lemon, strain and there it is, rivaling fresh mozzarella. The dough requires a food processor to do it fast, but you can save enough from not doing takeout and frozen pizza to buy one pretty quickly.

[Gabz]

I do pizza from scratch, but have never attempted making the cheese myself. I don't even bother with the food processor for the dough - I just pour all the ingrdients in the bread machine.

I'll have to look into making the cheese, though.........a quart of milk is a heck of a lot cheaper than even an 8oz block of mozzarella.

[wouldntbprudent]

My boys eat Mozz like it's candy. Does this cheese you make keep in the fridge for a while? How does it do melting?

My boys love tuna melts, too.

[luckystarmom]

Trader Joes sells pizza dough for fairly cheap. It's $1 for enough dough to make one large pizza.

I haven't made dough from scratch, but I like the convenience of Trader Joe's dough.

(I know lots of people don't have a Trader Joe's nearby.)