Product Review - Freschetta Natural Rising Pizza

Until now, pizza just wasn't pizza if it came from the grocery store. But now, Freschetta brand pizza makes a pizza you can really sink your teeth into! Forget Round Table, you can get a large Freschetta Natural Rising Frozen Pizza for as little as $4.00 on sale! And with all the Italian flavor, gooey cheese and yummy crust you've come to demand on pizza night.

I admit it. I love pizza. Sure, my 15 year old son does, too. In fact, if motherhood didn't demand I provide him with healthful meals, complete with a protein, a starch and plenty of fresh, vitamin-rich vegetables, my growing boy would be more than happy to have pizza, pizza, pizza, seven nights a week - and cold pizza for breakfast, too!

Once a week is probably enough, though. Pizza night is always fun. We usually eat on the couch, rather than at the dinner table, and watch a movie; pizza box in between us, sodas beside us, paper towels at the ready. Sometimes we save our pizza event for when he has friends over. I've yet to meet a teen who didn't like pizza. And it's nice for me. After putting in eight to ten hours at work, I'm more than happy to skip the cooking and the dishes and enjoy one of my favorite foods.

But, doggone it, good pizza has gotten good and expensive! Chicago Style pizza, Garlex, Primo's, Mountain Mike's, Z-Pizza, even Round Table ... Around here, I can easily spend $20 to $25 on a large pizza. It's outrageous! And for my son and me, it's no longer practical. As a single mom struggling to make ends meet, I simply can't afford to invest a huge percentage of my grocery budget on one meal!

So, as of almost five years ago now, restaurant pizza was out for us. Boy, did we miss our Round Table. We tried some of the cheaper places - Dominoes, Pizza Hut - Still too much money for my tiny budget and, well, not worth it anyway.

There are the Take and Bakes - Papa Murphy's, Papa John's, New York Take and Bake - Better price but still not very satisfying. Costco is a pretty decent alternative, but often greasy and somewhat inconsistent in taste. Pizza night just wasn't the fun it once was when money was not an object.

So, what's left? Frozen pizza, of course. That pre-boxed, stone cold, grocery store kind we kept trying to like. Sure, it's less money, but I gotta say, there's a reason for that! What I've never figured out is how different cooks can take the same ingredients and the same basic recipe but some of them come out with such awful tasting stuff. We've tried the Red Baron's, the Tombstone's, the Totino's, etc. All edible, but I really wouldn't call them "pizza". We'd pretty much given up on grocery store pizza until we found Freschetta. I'm so glad we did!

Freschetta Natural Rising Pizza comes in a green box with a little window to the pizza within. We have tried the Pepperoni, the three cheese, the three meats, the Special Deluxe (like a "supreme") and the Ham and Pineapple (our current favorite). This pizza is delicious! The sauce is excellent, the cheese is great and there are usually plenty of toppings on them (although on one occasion, there were only two pieces of pineapple on the whole Ham and Pineapple pizza - an oversight, I imagine). What is especially good about Freschetta's Natural Rising Pizza is the crust. It is soft and tasty, never chewy. It has a wonderful flavor with a light dusting of seasoning. It is not too thick, not too thin or hard. Both my son and I find ourselves eating the end crust right along with the rest of the piece, whereas, even with restaurant pizzas, we often left the crust.

Freschetta goes straight from the box to a pizza pan in a 400 degree oven for 18 to 22 minutes. I have always found it perfect right at 20 minutes in our oven. Just enough time to change after work, put in the movie, pour the sodas and be ready to hit the couch with our hot Freschetta ready to eat.

And half a pizza for each of us, my son and I, is just right for dinner. A "large" for Freschetta is not as big as a "large" for Round Table, so we never have left overs. But the price is so much better, it is well worth it.

The price, in fact, has probably made Freschetta's Natural Rising Pizza taste all the better to me. The typical price at my local grocery stores is about $7.99 for one large pizza. However, I routinely find Freschetta's Natural Rising Pizza on sale for either $4.00 or $4.99 per large pizza! That's only $2 a piece for dinner for two people! Now that sure beats Round Table! Blessed with a donated freezer in my garage, I've stocked up on large Freschetta Natural Rising Pizzas in all varieties. At four dollars a dinner, who knows, maybe my son will get his wish and we'll have pizza every night of the week until it's all gone!