Eating

Welcome, graduates of Pizza 101. You've made your own dough, you've rolled out your crusts with a rolling pin and ... you're beginning to feel, like, one with your dough. It's time to put away the pin and learn to spin.

Delicious in the extreme. Less than $3 for a spectacular dessert from your own oven. A half hour preparation. Bakes while you're eating dinner. Makes your entire home smell edible. Exercise enough self control to have leftovers, you get a killer breakfast the next morning, too.

This year I'm celebrating with a Pepper Polenta Pizza. Sweet corn. Sweet and hot peppers. I think Columbus would have liked this. More than 500 years later, it's still just two dollars for a great meal.

If the incredibly cheap and healthful collard green hasn't been part of your life, you just haven't been smoking the right stuff. Here's how to light up this dark, leafy green. Two delicious, aromatic ways: one vegan, one with bacon.

A delicious and beautiful vegetable course. Takes: less than ten minutes and two dollars. Gives: two huge portions or four smaller side portions; a lot of vitamins B and C and dietary fiber.

Delicious. Takes about three minutes. The ingredients: water, butter, sage (or any other fresh herb). Grow your own herbs, don't use too much butter - it's Cheap. It's Better than any melted butter thing you've ever done.

I got a huge bag of apples in my CSA farm share this week, so I'm making an Apple-Cheddar Pizza. Apples are everywhere now - at the seasonal peak flavors and seasonal low prices. Hit the Farmers Market, get some apples and try this for brunch. Or breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.

Squash is everywhere and really cheap right now. Acorn squash, butternut squash, Hubbards, pumpkins. All very cool looking. Especially the Delicata, and it's easy to peel. Even easier to cook if you made a batch of soffrito.