3 Ways To Get Pizza

This is the latest in our weekly series comparing three ways to accomplish common tasks by price and quality. Next Friday, we'll compare three ways of mowing your lawn.

When I was a kid, pizza night was something that happened only in event of a power outage or other natural calamity that made cooking at home impossible. This explains how I learned to sabotage a circuit breaker with a pocketful of paper clips.

These days, pizza is a far more integral part of our weekly menus, with three options leading the way: Many families keep frozen pizzas on hand in the freezer for times when dinner's needed in a big hurry. Others keep their local Pizza Hut or Domino's on speed-dial for delivery. Less common, but usually offering better fare, is the trip out to a local independent pizzeria, where a dedicated dough slinger will craft your crust and the toppings are sure to be far fresher than frozen.

In this economy, though, cost has to be a big factor when deciding what pizza option to pursue. When you look at a cost-quality comparison, you've got to include a fourth option in the mix: making your own pizza at home.

Just to keep things fair, we won't use a home-topped pizza on a homemade crust. That would be like matching a CPA up against an NFL linebacker in an arm-wrestling contest. Instead, the crust in this case is a refrigerated crust, unrolled and lightly pre-baked before the sauce and toppings go on. If you like more than one topping on your pizza, you'll always want to pre-bake a refrigerated crust so it gets crispy all the way to the center.

Let's look at a "supreme" pizza, which every pizzeria and frozen pizza brand does under one name or another.

For the frozen pie, we'll use Palermo's Rustico Supreme. Palermo's and Home Run Inn are the best frozen pizzas on the market, with the edge going to Home Run Inn. However, HRI doesn't make a "supreme," so Palermo's is a more-than-adequate competitor.

For the pizzeria pie, I visited my favorite local independent pizzeria, Johnny B's Pizza Pad, where the Big Toad is the "kitchen sink" pizza.

For the make-at-home, I bought a refrigerated crust, a jar of pizza sauce, a package of Hormel pepperoni, a bag of shredded pizza cheese, a can of chopped black olives, a small yellow onion, a green bell pepper, a handful of loose button mushrooms, a link of Italian sausage from the butcher counter and, just for thoroughness, a quarter-pound of ground beef also from the butcher.

The sausage and ground beef were pre-browned, as the cooking time for the pizza wouldn't allow for proper cooking and the fat released would make the crust soggy.

The Palermo's pie, with a shelf price of $6.99, was fairly good. The crust was lightly crispy on the bottom, but the toppings were a bit soggy. The pepperoni had good flavor. It was definitely worth the $6.99. The size of the pie needs to be considered, though. If you've got more than three people to feed, you'll definitely need two pies if the pizza is going to be the centerpiece of the meal.

The delivery pie was from Pizza Hut, a hand-tossed Supreme. As far as I know, the Hut was the first to use the "Supreme" moniker for its "everything" pie, but now you'll find it everywhere. The pizza, with a menu price of $14.99 for a large (plus tax and tip) was a step behind the Palermo's pie, with a soggy crust and far too much sauce.

The Johnny B's pie was outstanding, with a tender-crisp crust and abundant toppings that had obviously been cut that day. Even the sauce had an original touch, with a stronger garlic note than most. At a menu price of $22.99 (plus tax and tip) it wasn't cheap, but you would certainly get what you pay for.

And our homemade pie? All the ingredients together cost just shy of $11. Being a pepperoni freak, I used the entire package, plus all the sausage and ground beef, along with half the bell pepper, half the onion and four large button mushrooms, sliced thinly. the crust rolled out into a greased quarter-sheet pan, providing plenty of surface area for the toppings. The pre-baked crust afforded good support for the toppings, and after a few minutes in a 450-degree oven the cheese melted and the other toppings melded together to a very tasty result that landed somewhere between Palermo's and Johnny B's, closer to the latter.

You, of course, could easily improve the quality of the homemade pie with just a bit more expenditure, upgrading the pepperoni and sausage or perhaps getting exotic with some artichoke hearts or other favorites.

So, here's the final analysis of the three common ways to get pizza in our example. Note that prices vary on each option:

Frozen pizza:
Effort: Minimal
Quality: Average
Price: $6.99

Delivery:
Effort: Minimal
Quality: Average
Price: $14.99

Pizzeria:
Effort: Moderate
Quality: High
Price: $22.99

And here's how the fourth option compares:

Homemade:
Effort: High
Quality: Moderate to high
Price: $11