Mom’s Money

Pizza And Corn Dogs: Frugal And Nutritious…How?

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching your budget for some time now.  Family meals are one of the first and best places to start cutting back on expense; there’s always an alternative to high priced food items.  That’s fine if you are cooking for you and you alone.  What happens when you have kids who love pizza, corn dogs, and all those treats that generally cost a lot and aren’t always healthy?  There will be times when your children have friends over and it seems reasonable to feed them a fun meal.  You want to splurge a little and cook something other than beans and rice, right? 

Luckily, an adventurous cook such as yourself can develop some pretty inventive ways to recreate “fun” food with reasonably nutritious ingredients on a fraction of the cost of prepackaged goodies or, worse yet, delivery.  Check out these ideas that will make both you and your kids feel like they’re not being deprived while sticking to a budget.

Picasso Pizza:  So called because you get to be as creative as you want.  There are no guidelines to follow.  You can use any “crust” you want, whether it’s an actual store-bought pizza crust, dinner rolls flattened out, English muffins, or a piece of bread cut in a circle, the idea is to choose a crust that your kids will like and that they can build on.  Choosing an individual size crust will help your child customize their own pizza and make it more creative.  Let your child add tomato-based sauce, cheese-based sauce, mozzarella cheese, and choose from whatever you have on hand for toppings, like diced pepper, sausage, mushrooms, or black olives, and top with a bit more cheese.  Put the pizzas on a baking sheet with a little cornmeal sprinkled over the sheet, which adds the Pizza Parlor taste and texture.  Now, your kids not only get to enjoy what would have been an expensive treat, but they got to help design it, too.

Pizza Pocket Snacks:  You know the tiny pizza rolls that you can buy prepackaged that your kids love?  Try this extremely simple alternative to save your budget and have some control over the ingredients.  Take a regular, store-bought, rectangular pizza crust and cut it into evenly sized pieces each about the size of the palm of your hand.  Just eye-ball it.  If you use a meat and tomato mixture, brown the meat in a pan and stir in the tomato sauce you like.  Then take a spoonful of the meat mixture, mozzarella cheese, onion, or whatever your family likes, and place it in the middle of each square.  Seal the ends of the pizza dough (a drop of water may help) and place on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray.  Bake in the oven using directions on pizza crust. 

Corny Meat-on-a-Stick:  Because corn dogs are pretty popular, you don’t want to totally deny your kids the pleasure of this treat on a stick, do you?  This hand made version is so easy and nutritious, you can consider it a real meal, not just a treat.  You’ll take about a pound of ground chicken or turkey, put it in a bowl, add salt, pepper, one egg, and a sprinkle of bread crumbs.  Mush it all together really well, then take a handful and roll it in your hands to form a hot dog shape.  Dip in a little beaten egg and milk mixture, then roll and pat in a crushed corn-type breakfast cereal.  Repeat with the remaining meat mixture.  Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and bake until the meat is cooked through, about 30 minutes but test one if you’re not sure.  You can put food sticks (found in craft stores) into the finished product to have a real meat-on-a-stick look.

With a little bit of ingenuity and resourcefulness, just about any snack-type food your kids enjoy can be recreated at home for a fraction of the price, and an abundance of nutrition.  See if these few ideas don’t spark a whole wave a creativity in your house.  I dare you to try!