We had a successful pizza symposium with many people writing about making, delivering, and eating pizza with their families. A ton of awesome essays about an awesome food. But we only touched on frozen pizza in passing once or twice.
So I figure that as part of this weekend plans post (which, yes, my plans DO involve frozen pizza), I’ll do the deep dive on that one.
When I was young adult, the Tombstone Pizza was cheap as heck and I plowed through several of them a week. You make it, you cut it into thirds. One third now, one third later tonight, one third for breakfast tomorrow. The perfect food, suitable for maximum calorie delivery with minimal fuss. Remove the plastic, throw it onto the pizza pan, wait 20 minutes and you’ve got yourself a pizza that ain’t worth writing home about, but, heck. It’s food. You can eat it as you drive to class or work or sit in a darkened basement. Tombstone made, if not a perfect frozen pizza, a perfectly serviceable one (and they had hilarious ads that focused heavily on the memento mori):
Now I am older and Tombstones are a younger man’s game. That said, I have a handful of really good tricks to improve frozen pizza and turn a vaguely depressing meal into, hey, something a grownup might make for himself that he can eat as he sits in a darkened basement.
The most essential is the McCormick Italian Spice Grinder. You can find it in your local grocer’s spice aisle for about two to three bucks. After the pizza comes out of the oven, give it a couple of twists of that.
Additionally, I’ve experimented around with the various frozen pizzas and doctoring them before putting them into the oven.
First off is the Outsiders Three-Cheese Detroit Pizza. A lovely enough pizza by itself, as frozen pizzas go, but EXCEPTIONALLY doctorable. I like to get a pack of the pepperoni from near the hot dogs and not only throw it on the top of the pizza, but cut some in half and do a ring around the pizza crust (the pan it comes in makes this a cinch). After putting the pepperoni on top, then I sprinkle even more cheese on it. (I like to use the Shredded Italian Blend that you’ll be able to find in the cheese section.)
Cook it for two minutes longer than you normally would and you can find yourself saying “I can’t believe that this was just a frozen pizza.”
The Screamin’ Sicilian “Bessie’s Revenge” pizza is also pretty good for doctoring up in that fashion. By itself, it’s a pretty good frozen pizza. If you doctor it up? It’s a pretty good pizza.
Finally, Wild Mike’s Ultimate Super Sized Pepperoni is one that is my current fave. Sure, you have to put even more pepperoni on it and then sprinkle even more cheese, but it comes with not only an Italian Spice packet, but a little packet of red pepper flakes.
Each of these is a home run kinda pizza that exceeds the quality of the national-brand delivery places and gives a cheaper version of the good stuff that you get from the local delivery places that know how to compete on quality if they can’t compete on volume. Seriously, if you’re wandering down the frozen aisle and think “you know what, I will probably want some pizza next week”, also pick up a spice grinder and some extra pepperoni. I think you’ll be able to surprise yourself.
I know that, tomorrow, I will be making myself one of the Detroit pepperoni pizzas mentioned above (with pepperoni crust) and I’m looking forward to it already.
We’re also doing the thing where we’re going to the sister’s to celebrate the quarter’s birthdays and I was told that I should NOT buy the nephew a Nerf Gun or a Video Game. So I will be getting a model car kit as the gift for him and one of these to be the gift for him to open after I tell him “your mom told me not to get you a Nerf gun”. (I’ll have already made sure it has batteries installed when he opens it.)
All in all, I’m looking forward to a surprisingly full three-day weekend that was supposed to be uneventful. (Ain’t that always the way?)
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Kubrick Market #grocery #pizza #bread #minnesota…” by spirobolos. Used under a creative commons license.)
I’m going to Boogie by the Bay.Report
Dude, I just googled that and it looks like an absolute blast. (Gold?)Report
Dr Oatker pizza is good. As are the house brand selections you get from mark’s and spencer’s or Tesco’s. Totino’s party pizza is also good. I remember having Chicagotown’s. Their selection tends to be more bready, but its still goodReport
Dude. I’ve checked them out and they’ve tweeted twice in the last year.
Tell me more about the Doc Oatk. Make me believe.Report
Back when I was in the UK, the wife and I would have a pair of dr oatker margherita (that’s the only flavour we would get) for dinner about once a month. Way back before my brother got married, we used to buy one or two dr oatker pizzas (margherita, quattro formaggi, or spinachi) and have it as a late afternoon snack every weekend.Report
What an odd name for frozen pizza. It sounds like a patent medicine.Report
This afternoon, once I get the grading I need to do done, I’m going to do “cleaning sprints” – my house got *really* bad in the wake of my dad’s death and the other losses/upsets of this fall, I think I’m finally pulling out of the situational depression (1) from all of it.
But the only way I can clean (which is really mostly sorting through crap and pitching some of it and putting the rest away; I did keep up with stuff like sweeping) without getting overwhelmed is to set a timer on my phone and clean like crazy for a half-hour, and then take a break.
If I can get a decent amount done this afternoon, I might go antiquing tomorrow depending on the weather.
I will admit I’m a little paranoid right now about driving much – a friend of mine was killed about a month ago in a car wreck, and then a student lost a close friend in a car wreck, and then a woman I knew from church and AAUW who had moved to NC was killed in a car wreck, and now a math prof at a junior college near me was killed. And while I know car wrecks happen every day, it seems like the number of *fatal* wrecks is going up. Or maybe I’m just too good at seeing patterns in things. But yeah, do not like driving under bad weather conditions or at a time when traffic is bad…
(1) I HOPE. I know these things are never linear but I feel better this morning than I have in quite a whileReport
I’m so sorry to hear about everything you and some of the people you know are going through.
I totally get the “seeing patterns” thing. I’ve been doing the same thing, but with a different basket of tragedies. (I’ve become kind of hypochondriac* about a certain condition, and I tend to hyper-notice instances of people, both quasi-personal acquaintances and celebrities succumbing to it.)
I’m glad you’re maybe feeling a little better, again with your caveat that these things aren’t linear. Having lost both my parents over the years, I can say that, at least for me, the weird and depressing feelings come and go, and when they come, they come (seemingly) randomly.
*I’m not saying “hypochondria” lightly. It’s like being really afraid of something as if it’s actually happening even though all of the evidence suggests that it’s not. It’s almost like I know it’s hypochondria but I refuse to “accept” it on a deeper level.Report
No, I get it. Back when my dad was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, and then I had to go and get treated for hypertension, and my new doctor was all “we need to do a complete bloodwork panel on you because it’s been some years since you had that done” I worried acutely for about a week that my fasting glucose would be really high and I’d face yet more dietary restrictions and another medication to take and more monitoring to do.
There was no real reason to suspect it; I had no symptoms (though I guess type II can be pretty asymptomatic), I work out regularly, I don’t eat much sugar or carbohydrates. But that familial link worried me.
I should not have worried. Oh, everyone should be *careful* about sugar intake, but I was monitoring what I ate and wondering if I could cut back to less than 50 grams of carbohydrates a day. I know lots of people who do Keto do that sort of thing but….I find cutting out stuff like dairy (which has carbohydrates) and the occasional potato dish would be really hard.
I also have a couple people in my immediate circle here who are type II who are very….vocal….. about it, and who do stuff like criticize other people if that person so much as eats a cookie. Which is unpleasant and even at the height of my greatest salt restriction I’d be more prone to say “enjoy it for me, please” if I saw someone, for example, getting a pepperoni pizza.Report
Oh, jeez! That’s awful! I’m pretty sure that this is a statistical anomaly but I imagine that that is exactly as comforting as the phrase “statistical anomaly”.Report
I LOVE frozen pizza. It might not usually be as good as fresh or delivery, but it’s cheaper and it’s nice not to have to deal with people to get it. That sounds sad, but sometimes it’s nice to have time to oneself.
I’m not sure I have a single favorite, but here’s my list of go-to’s.
1. Tombstone
2. DiGiorno cheese stuffed crust
3. Bellatoria
4. Screamin’ Sicillian (Holy Pepperoni)
5. Nick and Vito’s (They have a restaurant in Big City, but I don’t think they’re a chain, and I’m not sure how widely the frozen version is sold.)
6. Lou Malnati’s (a Big City chain restaurant, but they have a frozen version that’s almost as good as the origiinal)
7. Mystic Pizza
8. Totino’s (I think they’ve gotten smaller???)
I tried Red Baron’s once and didn’t like it, but I might try it again someday.
I’m a pepperoni person. In Big City, however, sausage pizza seems to be an obsession. It’s not unusual for stores to have only one or two versions of pizza with pepperoni and the rest are cheese, or sausage, or sausage and pepperoni. (Some have vegetables, but who wants vegetables?) So I often buy the cheese versions and add pepperoni. (The good thing about Tombstone pepperoni, though, are the little cubes of pepperoni they add in addition to the regular pieces.)
Thanks for the spice grinder idea. Do you ever put the seasonings on before you cook the pizza, or after? (Asking for a friend.)Report
Re: #5. Are you talking about the Vito and Nick’s on S. Pulaski? Lord, if they marketed a frozen pizza, I’d be all over it.Report
Yes, it’s the very same one.
Alas, though, I’ve never been there. My wife has, though (or someone she works with brought it to her workplace).
I know some places, like the bigger chains, have way to order their frozen pizza and they deliver it in dry ice. I don’t know if Vito and Nick’s does, though.
[Edited to clear up my answer]Report
The hunt is on!Report
While I imagine you can do both, *I* do it immediately after plating.Report
Totino’s, maybe not a favorite, but it is everywhere I shop. Usually it ends up folded into a quasi calzone taco thing.Report
I never thought of eating it like a taco/calzone, but that’s just about right. Is it just me, or has it gotten smaller? (But then, I ate it a lot as a kid and didn’t have it again until a few years ago, so maybe I just remember it being bigger.)Report
I don’t recall well enough to be certain, but i think they have become smaller.Report
I don’t think I have eaten a frozen pizza since maybe high-school. Just never occurs to me. Oh well, maybe next life.
This weekend will be rainy, so I think I talked the wife into a busmans holiday for me, meaning going antiquing.Report
It’s my husband’s birthday this weekend, so we’re going to see Joker tomorrow.Report
Well tell that awnry cuss, happy birthday from me. How have you been?Report
Talk about burying the lede! Happy birthday, Jay.Report
Frozen definitely works in a pinch JB, when we travel to exotic spots. We enjoyed frozen pizza a few times in Oman earlier this year.Report