It's pizza or pasta or mac and cheese time: you can make it yourself, or order it at a fraction of the real cost - what would you do?

That would depend on my pizza and pasta making skills. Plus what mood I’m in. Sometime I enjoy baking and will bake a cake or pie, knowing I could get a cheaper, maybe better one down at the supermarket. I enjoy making pizza on the weekends, but if I’m not in the mood or don’t have the time, I’ll order it.

I would shoot myself in the foot before I’d ever choose to cook! XD

I could never eat mac and cheese again in my life and be totally happy. With pizza, I have at least 8 non-chain pizza places within 4 blocks of my house, each with a different style of making a pizza. There’s no point to making my own.

I would shoot myself in the foot before I order out anything! ;)

You just can’t beat Stouffer’s frozen mac and cheese. a large serving is about two bucks and well worth it. there is also a family size.

I’d happily make some homemade pizza, then cook it on the grill. It’s always far better than any other pizza I’ve had!

For pasta, I wouldn’t bother to make it from scratch. A box of pasta from the store is pretty cheap, and I have plenty of sauce in my freezer. Add some homemade meatballs, which are ridiculously easy to throw together, and you have a fantastic meal!

Mac and cheese though…I’ll pass. :)

@john65pennington Have you seen the nutrition information for Stouffer’s mac and cheese?! Yikes!

Almost always make it myself.

I love to cook. More often than not, I end up throwing random stuff in a pan and seeing how it works out. Most of the time, it’s delicious! Sometimes, not so much. Peanut butter does not go well with scrambled eggs…

Ok, I admit it, ever since I learned to make fresh pasta I have become a pasta snob.

The bottom line is that it takes no more time to make fresh pasta than it does to boil up the pre-packaged stuff. If you know what you are doing you can roll out your fresh noodles in less time than it takes for the water to boil. So… in the end the difference between the time you start until the time you start snarfing down on the end result is the same and the quality is much better.

As for Pizza, I have a wood fired brick oven in my backyard. I love to make pizza in it, but it’s really not worth the effort for just a pie or two. I ether wait until I can have some friends over or I make a dozen or so to stick in the freezer.

I don’t know how to make pizza, plus I usually like to eat it after some kind of exertion (hiking, chores) so I don’t want to cook it.

Maccy cheese, on the other hand, is one of my favorite things to make. I used to buy the boxed kind and add stuff to it, but now I always start from scratch because I love to switch up the cheese and liquid combo (ie, Cotswold with a dollop of brown mustard or sharp cheddar with sour cream).

MissAusten, actually, while read the heating instructions, i look the other way, instead of reading the fat grams involved. the numbesr have to be skyhigh. this is why i only their mac and cheese about once a month. their mac and cheese is like a little piece of heaven on earth. it’s that good. thanks for the info.

@KatawaGrey Peanut butter and scrambled eggs?!?! While I salute your boldness, that’s just wrong…

@john65pennington That’s why I like homemade treats. There is no nutrition info, and I can pretend that because I’ve cooked it, it has to be good for me. Like the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies I made yesterday!

@KatawaGrey: <gagging>

My seven year old grand-nephew (with the help of his grandfather) made mac and cheese for 8 from scratch this weekend. Whote-wheat noodles, freshly graded organic cheddar cheese, home-made bread crumbs, and a real white sauce with some mustard in it.

My sister grated the cheese and made the bread crumbs so that was some help. But the dish was delicious and took very little time.

@gailcalled: That would wash the taste of peanut butter and scrambled eggs out of my mouth. :)

It was a sight. The seven-year-old was standing on a stool and wearing a large apron; his grandfather had a grip on his belt, the stock pot was 8 quarts and at a furious boil.

After the meal, this kid (in second grade) went back to working on his original illustrated book; “Find the Blue Bug.”

Are you nuts? You can make your dish much more cheaply at home, plus make it so much better. No one makes mac and cheese as good as me. No one! My children will accept no substitutes!

@wundayatta do not make me challenge you to a s’mac-down.

I would order pizza because my local pizza place makes pizzas ten times better than I could hope to make myself. Mac n cheese or any kind of pasta I would make myself. And not with a nasty packet sauce either. Real cheese is the way to go.

i love to cook! mac and cheese is hard to make from scratch, or at least i haven’t had much luck, but easy mac or regular mac in the box with hot sauce, is a favorite late night snack of mine! Pizza i love to make but it’s always different than when ordered in. and same with pasta, depends on what kind i’m in the mood for! but i generally make it at home. of course most of this is different when i’m in NY because the Italian places out there are bomb.

What? Delivery pizza at a fraction of the real cost? Where, where, where? I can make pizza for about $5 at home, including all ingredients, and it costs $25 for the same size delivered.

If your scenario was true, we would eat pizza every day.

Actually pizza is waaay cheaper to make at home. And more fun. And did I mention 2000000x better? I’d say at home it’s a bout 5 dollars to make 2 pizza-stone-sized pizzas.

^ I’ll have the Fred Flintstone version for 5 bucks, please. ~

@perg I think it would be cool to taste all our different versions. Mine has several cheeses (although the most important one is cheddar—preferably older than two years), a little curry powder and mustard powder and nutmeg. Nutmeg is pretty important to the kids. The more fat in the milk, the better it is, but usually I just use skim milk. I also start by making a roux, which adds a bit of a nutty under-flavor.

So you can probably figure that yours is going to be more on the tart/sour side, while mine will be more cheesy—not that there is more cheese, although there might be—just because of the brightness of the seasonings.

As long as we are swapping recipes:

Artichoke Alfredo Pizza (my son makes an Alfredo sauce that is to die for)

Toss a nice thin crust. Top with Alfredo sauce, artichoke hearts, and a very small sprinkling of mozzarella cheese (don’t want to overshadow that great sauce). If possible, bake in a wood fired brick oven.

@YoBob So what time is dinner? Oh hell, I don’t want to wait for dinner. See you at lunch—say 12:30?

@wundayatta The trouble with wood fired brick ovens is that they take about 3 hours to heat up… ;)

@YoBob Well I usually take a late lunch. 3 is ok with me. ;-)

Can I come? That sounds delicious!

@KatawaGrey: hi, sweeitie…Pick me up on the way, OK?