Ristorante Pizza All Jazzed Up

My love affair with pizza started when I was a young kid and my mother brought me to a pizza joint where one of her friends was singing.  Till then, my closest encounter with anything Italian was watching Dean Martin sing It's Amore on telly.

The restaurant owner was a jolly Italian chap who, fortunately, loved children.  Despite pulling the much detested cheek-pinching act (why do adults think they can get away with that?  How would they like it if someone took a good pull on their wanker just because they look cute in their jeans?), he made a pretty good pizza.

In hindsight, it was probably not the best pizza but the combination of cheese and tomato sauce was a winner.  I did not even mind when my mother's friend proved to be a rather poor warbler.  Yes, children, pizza can cause temporary deafness.

Despite my adoration for pizza, I never attempted to make my own.  For some reason, I was intimidated by the process of making the pizza dough and was convinced I could never do a credible job of it.  And I am fussy with my pizza.

Anyway, I learnt how to make credible pizza dough from a book about artisan bread making.  Although it will never wow over any real Italians, it is good enough that I can make my own pizza anytime I want.  However, this month is not the time.  It is going to be a challenging time and cooking has to be fast and strategic until I am more settled.

Luckily for me, last week NTUC Fairprice had a promotion on Ristorante pizzas.

I first noticed this brand of pizzas from Dr Oetker more than a decade ago when I had a small party and decided frozen pizza would be a better option than pizza delivery.  Since one of my guests was a vegetarian, I picked the spinach and mozzarella cheese one and it was so good that it became a family favourite.  I've tried a number of different types from pizza from the same brand but I did not care for many of them.  For some reason, they are too salty for my taste while the spinach one is just nicely seasoned.

I've noticed that Ristorante has fairly regular promotions for S$6.95 per pizza so I tend to watch out for those and stock up on a couple (freezer space granting).  It's quite a good deal as one pizza can feed me 1 1/2 meals and way more economical than calling for pizza delivery. Furthermore, only Pasta Mania's pizzas are MSG-free and no offense to them, their pizzas are quite horrible.  Thankfully, their pastas are much, much better ... nice save?

Anyway, I decided to cook me up some pizza for tea since I am gonna need the fuel. As usual, I decided to jazz up my spinach and mozzarella pizza with bacon, cheddar cheese and pine nuts.

See how large the pizza is?  Unlike some other brands, the pizza inside is not significantly smaller than the packaging.  I typically have about 1/2 leftover.