Frugal meal - homemade pizza

About a year ago we decided to have a treat and rang Domino's Pizza one Friday night. The treat turned sour after we had ordered a basic pizza and we discovered one pizza was going to set us back £17 without any extras like garlic breads or drinks. That put the kibosh on that. I can make two medium-sized vegetarian pizzas for about a £1. A luxury pizza with all the trimmings I can do for about £2.50 - £3.00. No brainer. No Dominos. Order cancelled.

Basic dough recipe (dough mixed in bread maker for convenience)

250ml water
2tbsp of olive oil
1lb of strong bread flour
1.5tsp salt
2tsp sugar
A 7g packet of fast-acting dried yeast (If I want thin and crispy I leave it out)

Sling all the ingredients in the bread-maker in the order stipulated by the manufacturer and run it through one dough cycle. If doing a thin and crispy, leave out the yeast and just let the machine mix and beat the dough around for a while until it looks smooth and elastic.

Now I know it sounds very lazy to let a machine do something I could do by hand but I'm on the go and working full-time. When I'm retired I'll mix by hand and enjoy the process. Right now, I just want dough while I'm getting in the washing, writing press releases, talking to clients, mowing the lawn and having sex with my husband. In fact scrub all of the former and just stick with the later. I'd rather use the time to have sex with my husband than mix dough by hand. Call me strange.

Split the dough into two and roll out thin. Now I have a silicone baking tray that I use to roll the dough onto and, once topped, put straight into the oven. Saves vital minutes and a lot of swearing later. Why? Two reasons; 1) because rolling takes time and the elastic nature of the dough means it doesn't want to stay put where you left it. It will keep contracting itself back, but persistence is the key. That and grasping the edges and pulling them out gently. Once you've got it there, you don't want to have to peel the dough off the surface of something and try and move it somewhere else 2) if you use a baking tray you have to add extra oil to make sure the pizza doesn't stick. I try and use as little oil as I can get away with to take pity on the old arteries.

Right topping: I currently use chilli sauce on the base of our pizzas to give them some real zing, sprinkle over some grated cheese and then top with chopped or sliced onions, peppers and mushrooms. If I have it in the fridge, I might add some bacon and chicken (roast leftovers are good for this) or if I really want to push the boat out, I buy pepperoni, ham and some minced beef (which I season and fry) and add that. Then I top with more cheese. That's my luxury "hey honey it's our wedding anniversary" pizza. ROFL.
(As Dave Ramsey says, you have to live like no-one else, so one day you can live like no-one else.)

Then I stick each pizza in a hot oven at about Gas Mark 7 until the cheese is browned. If you use a silicone tray, slide the pizza off before cutting. Food resistant they may be; resistant to sharp cutting implements they are not. Ask me how I know.