Typically a frozen pizza should be sized so I can eat it alone in one sitting. It just doesn't seem right to share a frozen pizza, though the Dish is a notable exception. As I was perusing Facebook the other night one of my friends, The Hoosier, was touting the new Red Baron Fire Baked Crust pepperoni pizza as the best frozen pizza he's ever had. I wrote to him that can't possibly be true because The Dish makes the best frozen pizza. The Hoosier agreed that The Dish is mighty fine, but takes forever to cook and costs quite a bit ($6-$8). Based on his measurements of relatively cheap with short cooking time, I can picture the pizza being better.
I haven't had a Red Baron pizza since college where I ate quite a few. I probably haven't had a Red Baron pizza sober since I was in Jr. High and I didn't enjoy them then. I only ate them in college because I was hungry at 2 AM and QT sold Red Baron pizzas. Granted this is a post about frozen pizza but I've never been drunk enough or hungry enough (had I smoked the weed in college I think I might have gotten stoned enough) to eat the QT sandwiches of that era. I never enjoyed a single Red Baron pizza and that was the reason I didn't immediately buy the Fire Baked Crust when I saw it at the store last week.For a pizza The Hoosier was touting as cheap, $4.49 seemed kinda steep to me, but it was a nice size, right on the border of what I can eat in one sitting. It also took a really long time to cook for a pizza The Hoosier was touting as much quicker than The Dish. I cooked mine right at 20 minutes, but it took a good 10 minutes to get the heat up to 450. A Totino's pizza takes about 1/3rd of the time of the Red Baron, but is also kinda awful so you take the good with the bad.
I used The Hoosier tip of letting it sit for six minutes before cutting it up. Unfortunately for me I was also making lunch for the kids (angel hair pasta with a lemon basil Parmesan vinaigrette, a Vard house favorite), so the 6 minutes turned into at least 10. But once I did cut it and eat it, I was pleasantly surprised, very pleasantly. I could definitely get behind the sentiment of best frozen pizza ever. Unlike most frozen pizzas, it had a good amount of sauce, so it wasn't dry like most frozen pizzas. The crust had a good crisp and thickness to it. You could definitely taste it was a frozen crust, but it's a very good to great frozen crust. The cheese and pepperoni were plentiful and tasty.
As a whole, the pizza is excellent and I'd rather have a Red Baron Fire Baked Crust pizza than any offering from Pizza Hut, Papa John's or the like. When you see them on sale at the grocery pick a couple up and keep them in the freezer for the lazy Sunday lunch or Manic Monday dinner. If you feel strongly about a frozen pizza that I haven't covered in this post, let me know in comments, I'll give it a try.
