2/14/08 | Celeste Pizza For One
[ Currently Eating: OMG Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf ]
Here is a confession: I did NOT use this Celeste Frozen Pizza as a frisbee or discus as I was completely intending to. No, I actually ended up eating all of it and enjoying it instead of “going the distance” off of the roof.
I have to admit I’m no pizza expert. Still, after having a surprisingly good experience with the Tony’s Deep Dish Frozen Individual Pizza that was reviewed earlier, I couldn’t resist picking up a little of “Mama” Celeste’s Pizza for One. Mama in quotes, of course. But hey, it does say “Authentic Italian Since 1930″ so there must be a real Mama, right? OK, I don’t know the history of Celeste so I shouldn’t assume that it isn’t a time honored tradition and not a sham.
Anyhow, this review is about the pizza. So I picked up two of them for a dollar each. The one I’m reviewing is the “Deluxe” and they also have plain cheese, pepperoni, and some 3 or 4 cheese blend - I can’t remember exactly. The key is that they’re normally $2 so I previously passed them over. But these were a buck so I figured I’d give it a try.
And first let me say that true Cheap Eaters are going to cringe at actually buying frozen pizza - preferring to make their own pizza at home in various ways. What can I say - I’m not a truly desperate cheap eater. Just an average joe cheap eater who’s sucked in by commercials, bargain bins, and product placement. Boo on me.
This is a 7 inch pizza that weighs about 6.5 ounces. It’s not enormous, but I felt it was decent if it’s a dollar. It comes frozen and you can microwave it or pop it in the oven. I chose the latter, but thinking about it, I should have tried the microwave method since that’s how most people would cook it. Interestingly, they include a weird gray “microwave” disc that you put the pizza on in order to have it brown better. I didn’t use it because I used the conventional oven - but I would assume it works like the gray disc grids that are on the top inside portion of the boxes of some frozen pot pies.
Above is a picture of the frozen pizza. One thing I like is the nice “coverage”. All the ingredients are pretty densely packed.
Now above is the pizza after I baked it in the conventional oven on a baking sheet at 400F for about 16 minutes. Looked pretty good. Here’s the breakdown.
The Crust - nice and crunchy and very thin compared to the Tony’s one (of course, that one is deep dish). The crust was not burnt at all and I had no trouble removing it from the sheet. They say you can bake it directly on the oven rack but I decided not to chance the dripping of cheese and toppings.
The Sauce - decent tomatoey taste without a ton of herbs or spices. I think if you’re used to pizza sauce with a lot more flavor you might be slightly disappointed. For me, it was pretty good.
The Cheese - It was average - I think I personally would have liked a little more at the expense of less of the other toppings. But it was OK.
The Toppings - The Sausage had a surprisingly good amount of spices, but it wasn’t actually “spicy”. It had an anise or fennel or whatever flavor that is. The Red and Green Bell Peppers consisted of small pieces and since I really like bell pepper that was nice to have. The Mushrooms were very, very sparse. There were a few really small chunks, and maybe one full slice. It’s a cheap pizza - so what do you expect.
Toward the center of the pizza, I noticed it wasn’t as crispy. But it wasn’t cold or anything - just less crispy. I might have chanced it and went 18-20 minutes instead of 14-16, but I decided to follow the box. There was some occasional “bitter” taste to the pizza - I thought at first it was the bell pepper. But I thought I detected it in the sauce. It wasn’t off-putting but I did notice it there.
Overall, this is another frozen food backup that I’d stock up on when it’s on sale. I wouldn’t call this gourmet eatin’, but it’ll will suffice for a midnight snack. I have one more in the freezer - but I guess I won’t be frisbeeing it off the roof like I planned to. Sorry, discus afficianados…
Price: $1.00
Found At: Albertson’s
Cheap Eats Score: 8/10
February 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
If you click on “About Us” on this page, looks like there might have been a really Mama Celeste!
Nice review. Man, now I’m hungry.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I admit that I too have had a few Mama Celeste pizzas in the past however Men’s Health just rated them the worst frozen pizzas on the market, mainly due to the 4 grams of trans fat in each tiny pizza. This trans fat comes from the fake cheese they use on their pizzas. As good as they are for a buck I don’t think I’ll be buying them anymore. Trans fats are really hard for your body to break down.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:56 am
I used to eat these a lot, along with the microwave dinners. Come home from school, grab one out of the fridge and throw it in the microwave. The pizza does get soggy on the crust when I cook it without that grey paper thing, but eating with a fork doesn’t make a difference to me.
$1 per frozen pizza is a bargain. Gotta get some of this next time I go for groceries. And trans fat isn’t going to make me think twice about grabbing a few.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Handy tip for getting the best of a frozen pizza - microwave speed combined with the oven crispness - pre-heat oven to 450, while that is warmimg up, microwave on high for about 1-2 minutes (time vary, but if you see cheese starting to melt - stop) - let the pizza sit a minute then into the oven, direct on the rack, (or a piece of tin foil if you’re concerned about a mess) - until cheese is melted in the center - generally you are eating an “oven-crisp” in less than 5 minutes!
February 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
You ever notice that mama celeste looks quite similar to tim meadows?
I was going to mention the hybrid method as well but Mike beat me to the punch. As for the transfats… I only worry about them if I plan on eating a whole lot of something. I don’t know about you but I don’t eat 8 of these things in a day. For a buck I can deal with 4grams.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The only other cheap pizza in these parts is the $1 Totino’s pizza. I am going to look for these. They look way better!
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Ahh, cheap frozen pizza - one of my aftershool staple back in high school. I would get the four cheese & add my own toppings. My sister prefered the deluxe with extra cheese. Then Mum would use the extra veggies in stir fry.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
We used to eat these things, but stopped when we read the label and found that the Celeste pizzas have trans fat
May 10th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
well, being you can get medium pizzas that are 50% larger for the same price on sale… its less apealing.
as for making your own… premade dough in my local groceries are $4 for 2 crusts, or about $1 for the mix alone.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:31 am
your pizza is the best,mrs irene levan,22park place,bloomsburg,pa17815
August 19th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I have to admit, Mama Celeste has always been my favorite frozen pizza precisely because they don’t taste anything like real pizza (actually, I don’t think any frozen pizza does, even the ones that proclaim to be like delivery). I love the sweet tomato sauce and the fake cheese! The only thing that worries me is the whopping amount of trans fat.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I am very disappointed to learn that Celeste uses fake cheese.
Celeste has always been my favorite quick cheap frozen pizza. When they are 1$ each I stock up and One usually satifies my lunch craving.
As far as the Deluxe goes I have always hated teh green peppers on them they taste like metal, and I just ate a deluxe that had very little cheese on it and the last few deluxes i had wer missing a lot of cheese so i figure+d the cheese prices were driving them to use less.
Oh and the best fastest way to cook thses is in the toaster oven usually 2 cycles on toast will cook them or 5-10 min on 400
January 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
OMG is that a Corelle Blue Snowflake plate? I grew up with those things, all I have left is 4 bowls.. Ahh the memories..
January 20th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@ratbuddy - yep it is snowflake blue corelle - you should get on down to your local thrift. we’ve found quite a few old corelle patterns there - I grew up in the 70s with Butterfly Gold myself…
March 29th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
grab one, pop it in the microwave, fold in half and eat like a calzone
love the veggie one.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:45 am
I used to love Celeste Pizzas until I found out that’s not real cheese on there…check the ingredients. “Only problem is, the fine print on the side of the box very quietly tells us that the number two ingredient in the pizza’s topping is “cheese substitute”
–Kindddd of gross. I think I’ll pay a little more to get a pizza that has REAL cheese on it from now on.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
For $1.00, which is a pretty typical sale price (they’re $1.50 at normal pricing) these are great! Are you kidding? A freakin’ Snickers bar if 75 cents. The Meatball one isn’t horrible and the Sausage & Pepperoni one has a lot of meat-like product on it. They’re great to have in the freezer for when you’re hammered and it beats going to a fast food place unless you can hit the dollar menu. That’s not always an option in New York City, where the dollar menu at McD’s is basically small fries, cookies and apple pie.
They’ve saved my drunk, hungry ass many a time so I keep a stash in the freezer at all times.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Celeste Pizzas-for-One are great to have around. I stock up whtn they’re a buck. My top tip is to get the 4-cheese version then top it yourself. The other favorite are the Stouffer’s French Bread pizzas. They’re great, too: nothing at all like real pizza, but quite nice in a pinch.