I eat!
I found these Trader Giotto’s Bambino Pizza Formaggio – single-serve cheese pizzas – to be extremely generic as far as frozen pizzas go. They are fine, but there is nothing remarkable about it. My daughter liked them because she can easily cook them in the air fryer. And they’re the right size when you want a light meal. But otherwise, they’re unremarkable.
The package of four sells for $4.
Trader Joe’s Organic Cheese & Tomato Pizza is as generic a frozen pizza as you can imagine. It tastes just like every other frozen cheese pizza out there. The dough is on the thin side, so it was crispy even though I cooked it on a baking sheet. The sauce was inoffensive, the cheese a bit on the scant side. There was just nothing remarkable about it. My daughter liked it because she thought it tasted like cheeetos, but I definitely did not get that.
It’s made in Italy, which in this case is a minus – because if you’re going to ship something in an energy-guzzing frozen container all the way from Europe to California, it should be better than average. At $6, it was equivalent in price to supermarket pizzas when on sale.
In all, I wouldn’t get it again for myself, but my daughter might for herself.
I was surprised at how tasty this pizza was. I don’t usually like thin crust pizza, but it is a great way to save carbs. And this one is really ultra thin. The cheese and the alfredo sauce combined so that it looks like there is a lot of cheese. It was flavorful and loved the little bits of oregano. The caramelized onions provided the occasional burst of sweetness. The chicken didn’t contribute much more than protein. In all, I’d get it again.
Regular price is $7, but I got it on sale for $4.50
I hate to say it, but these Panzerotti Pizza Bites were a disappointment. These pastries consist of pizza dough filled with a mixture of tomato sauce and cheese. The first problem was the dough: it tasted of old oil. It actually reminded me of the 50-cent fruit pies I used to get at the supermarket during college because it was all I could afford. As I heated them up in the microwave, the texture was different – bready and somewhat chewy. Unfortunately, there was also too much dough and not enough filling – and the filling had too much sauce and not enough cheese, making it unpleasantly acidic.
They are $4 and made in Italy, but not worth your while.
I’m not a fan of thin crust pizza, but obviously carbs are bad for me so I could enjoy pizza more often if I could convince myself to go for the thin crust. California Pizza Kitchen might just convince me to do that.
I’d always liked California Pizza Kitchen, though I can’t remember going to an actual restaurant since my 22-yo was a baby. It’s not surprising, the only one in the East Bay is in Dublin, and if I’m going to go that way, I’m going to go to Zachary’s instead (and not for the thin pizza). Their frozen pizzas, however, are manufactured by Nestlé (a very problematic company). I didn’t realize that when I ordered this one, or that they also make DiGiorno and Tombstone pizzas). Hopefully I’ll remember and avoid them in the future.
These pizzas were on sale at Safeway last week for $6 (regular price is $10) and as we didn’t have particularly high temperatures forecast for this week, and I didn’t realize they were made by Nestlé, I decided to give them a try.
The BBQ chicken pizza tasted just like I remembered from long ao. I enjoyed the flavor combination of sweet (but not too sweet) BBQ sauce, chicken, red onions and cheese. The dough wasn’t too crispy, and it served the toppings well. Being so thin, it only required about 12 minutes in a pre-heated oven.
A pizza is large enough to serve 2 if you add a salad. At under 15-oz, it’s not a super great value, but probably better than filling yourself up with carbs. I’d get it again if it wasn’t made by Nestlé.
Trader Joe’s Spizzico di Pizza are frozen two-bite pizza rounds that you can be heated up in the oven or the microwave – and, presumably, the air fryer. They are pretty basic: dough, sauce and cheese but my younger daughter really liked them – even more than regular frozen pizza. I wouldn’t go that far, but they were tasty enough. The sauce was slightly bittersweet, the cheese had flavor and they were surprisingly crispy even when cooked in the microwave. I’ll buy them again, because my daughter liked them. She ate the whole 9 oz package for lunch, which included 12 pizza rounds. The package was $4.
The whole package had 670 calories, 75g carbs, 8g sugar and 1390mg sodium. They’re made in Canada.
Shark Tank, a show where budding entrepreneurs pitch investment opportunities in their companies to five billionaires, has been on national TV for fifteen years – but as I never watch TV per se, I didn’t really become aware of it until a few weeks ago, when YouTube started pushing episodes of it on me. After trying one, I got hooked on it – not so much for the pitches, but because it introduced me to some cool products, some wacky ones and some that everyone could see were destined to be failures. Several of the products pitched to the sharks have actually become popular since their appearance on the show, though so far, there is only one I’d actually bought myself prior to becoming acquainted by the show. I have been intrigued by some of the products featured, however, and when I saw that the Pizza Cupcake was available at my local Safeway, I thought I’d give them a try.
The pizza cupcakes are not cupcakes per se, but they consist of a pastry dough baked in a smaller-than-usual muffin tin, hollow in the center and filled with pizza sauce and cheese. They come frozen and you bake them in the oven. The secret of the cupcakes is the dough, it’s described as a mixture of brioche and sourdough and it’s light, airy and yet still chewy. It’s quite tasty and I loved he consistency. The pizza sauce was on the sweet side, it bordered on being too sweet an acidic – but as there isn’t much of it, it wasn’t a big deal. The cheese is just cheese, it could have used some Parmesan for a shaper flavor. The problem is that there isn’t enough sauce/cheese for the whole cupcake – only the shallow center has it. Fortunately, the bready borders are good dipped on ranch sauce, but you have to have some around to enjoy them that way.
I cooked my cupcakes in the air fryer, using the directions in the Pizza Cupcake website: preheat the air fryer to 350°, and then cook for 5-7 minutes (I did 6). That left me with some burnt spots on the top and cheese that was bordering on cold. Next time, I’ll try not preheating and doing 8 minutes, or maybe cooking it for 10 minutes at 300° – but I imagine all air fryers are different.
The package of 6 pizza cupcakes was $10 on sale at Safeway ($13 regular price), which seems way too expensive – though I find pretty much all food at Safeway too expensive nowadays.
The final frozen pizza on sale at Safeway last week was Chicago’s Home Run Inn pizza. I got both a cheese and a pepperoni one and my daughter made the cheese. We both loved it. It’s hard to describe a pizza, but this one reminded me of the pizza served at La Vals in Berkeley when I want to college. It’s quite a bit thinner, but flavor wise it’s very close to what I can remember. It is probably my favorite frozen pizza ever.
Safeway had a bunch of frozen pizzas on sale this week, so it seemed like a good opportunity of giving them a try. I’m not generally fond of thin crusted pizza (which is what I gather Safeway means by “Neapolitan style”), but it’s overall healthier.
This flavor particularly intrigued me, as pear and gorgonzola pair beautifully and bacon could only make it better. This time, I was right. The flavors actually all worked very well and the pizza was very good. I’d have it again (despite its crispy, thin crust).
Gorgonzola by itself would be overwhelming, so the pizza also has mascarpone and Mozarella cheeses – but I had to read it in the box, as it’s not apparent. The predominant flavor is gorgonzola, but in a reasonable amount. I did like both the bacon and the arugula, but felt it could have used more of both. The pear came in the way of a very sweet chutney. Of course, fresh pears would be better – or even a less sweet chutney, but it did provide a nice note to the pizza.
It’s made me want to try the other pizzas from this series – though only as long as they’re on sale for $6.
I absolutely love Chicago style deep dish pizza, so when I saw that Gino’s East of Chicago Deep Dish Pizzas were on sale at Safeway for $6, I had to give it a try. The reviews were so good that I got both a Mozzarella cheese one and a Supreme. Boy, was I disappointed!
The pizza tastes of one thing and one thing only: pasta sauce. And while it’s not a bad pasta sauce, it’s not a great one either. On top of some spaghetti, with some Parmesan cheese on top, I might even enjoy it. But it just does not belong on pizza. I am aware that the sauce for Chicago style pizza, unlike that for other pizzas, is cooked – so it lacks the fresh, fragrant flavor of raw sauce. But they still tend to taste different than pasta sauce. Zacchary’s, my favorite Chicago-style stuffed pizza chain in the Bay Area, uses a sauce very similar to just stewed tomatoes, which retains much of the freshness of the raw fruit. Gino’s sauce while still chunky, is really a melded sauce. It’s hard to describe other than it really makes you think of spaghetti sauce.
And while the sauce is on top, as is the custom for Chicago-style pizza, I couldn’t remove enough of it to be able to taste the other ingredients. It was just a mess. No one else in the family liked it either. I hate to waste food, but I ended up giving it to the dog.
It takes 45 minutes on a pre-heated oven to heat up this pizza. I was pre-warned by reading reviews, but you should be aware. At $6 for a 2 Lb pizza, it’s not a bad value while on sale. It should feed two people (or more if you are eating a salad or something else).
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