Mozzarella Cheese Bread

Mozzarella Cheese Bread

From time to time, Gina and I get to take the 1 hour drive to Orange County to housesit for my Uncle Rich and Aunt Ginny. They were out of town in Chicago and we were able to enjoy some beach time!

This week's blog post will be about one of the yummy treats that we made while we were out there. 

First, we bought some pizza dough from a local pizzeria. One large pizza worth was $4.00.

We rolled out the dough and formed it into a greased baking dish.

Then, we topped with mozzarella (part skim, of course), parmesan cheese, minced garlic, olive oil, and italian seasoning.

Per the pizzeria owner's instructions, we set the oven to as hot as it could go (500 degrees, F) and baked for ~10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, we weren't able to get the nice browned crust that the guy at the pizzeria told us to look for. We put it in for ~5 more minutes. The cheese browned up a lot more, but at least the crust was done. It was pretty darn good. My Aunt Ginny introduced us to the simplest sangria recipe the other day.  Simply mix wine (whatever kind, however much you want) and Fresca soda for a refreshing, tasty drink (see below).

And of course, the two made a perfect pair out by the pool.

Here is a closeup of the yummy cheese sticks.

Nutritional Analysis

We'd like to do a cost analysis and nutritional analysis.We will look at the calories first. We used part-skim mozzarrella (~350 calories for the whole meal). The dough we estimated as ~1000 calories (from various websites). This worked out to about 700 calories for half the cheese bread (we were hungry!), which really isn't too bad: all things considered. It's fewer than ordering out, and still very tasty! 

Cost Analysis

So we bought the pizza dough for $4.00. The mozzarella was ~$5.00 for the package (we used half), so about $2.50. We used Italian seasoning (~$0.08 worth), jarred minced garlic (~$0.10 worth), and parmesan cheese (~$0.50 worth). Total, $8.18: which we estimated about 4 servings: or about $2.04 per serving.

See Gina enjoying the company (even though she's allergic!). Sebastian was so cute.

Here's a picture of Gina and I enjoying the beach in Laguna Niguel later that weekend.