Pizza - Can This Be A Healthy Food?

Pizza - Can This Be A Healthy Food?

Every component of pizza - crust, toppings, sauce and cheese are thought to be unhealthy. This is no longer the usual case today. Many pizza parlors today offer this delectable food in a new way - the use of organic ingredients only. Thus, every slice of organic pizza becomes healthy food.

Many of us believe that pizza is very unhealthy food because it contains ingredients that can add weight to the consumer. A slice of pizza has many calories, depending on its toppings and crust. This connotation will change if you know how the making of pizza had been modified by many people who advocate the use of healthy and organic ingredients.

You may believe that you cannot rely on pizza delivery and that the healthy kind can only be made available when you create it yourself. But you are wrong because today, many pizza stores had started to serve purely organic pizza. The making of a healthy pizza means using the right ingredients, all natural and organic.

Let us take a look at the different basic ingredients in the making of a pizza.

Crust

You can examine the dough which actually is the crust. You can have gluten-free dough. Many people find its taste horrible but then, your palate can adjust to this taste until you get used to it. The gluten-free pizza can either be chewy or crispy; you can have it thin or thick. Good pizza stores find the right balance between crispiness and chewiness to come up with a flavorful and good crust.

 This good recipe for crust blends together different types of flour. Tapioca flour, brown rice flour and sorghum flour, all organic and gluten-free varieties, can be used. Some ingredients like brown sugar, sea salt and olive oil can be added to add flavor to the crust. Depending upon your choice, you can have a thin or a thick crust. You can even have options for the shape, round or square.

Sauce

The sauce is another important part of a pizza. Organic ingredients can be purchased from farmer's markets. This can be made of fresh tomatoes infused with fresh herbs and garlic. Then these ingredients are pureed in a food processor. There are different textures of sauce; with diced tomatoes, it can be a little bit chunky. You can opt for a spicy or sweeter flavor and to add more health benefits, this is made with low levels of sugar and sodium.

Toppings

There is a wide range of choices for toppings. To really make it ultra healthy, you can choose organic vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower florets, mushroom, sweet bell pepper and more other choices.

 You can have some low-sodium organic ham, bologna and others meat toppings. Meat can also be organic now so this is the kind that is added to the toppings.

The Historic Roots of Pizza

The Historic Roots of Pizza

Pizza is an oven-baked flat usually circular bread, covered with tomato sauce and cheese with optional toppings. All the basic ingredients of a healthy nutritional plan are used in this world-famous culinary product. From dining out to ordering in, pizza has evolved to one of the most loved food categories in the U.S. and around the globe.

The roots of modern pizza come from the ancient Greek colony of Naples in Magna Graecia, which is the part of southern Italy. As early as the 3rd century BC, Marcus Porcius Cato, the first historian of Rome, mentions that people in that area used to eat a flat round dough dressed with olive oil, herbs, cheese and honey. Even in the city of Pompeii, archaeologists have excavated shops that resemble modern pizzerias.

 Since the tomato was not yet known in Europe, the ingredients of the ancient pizza were somewhat different, but the concept remained the same. During the 16th century, when tomato was transferred from the Americas to Europe, the poor area around Naples begun adding this plant to their yeast-based flat bread covering it with mozzarella cheese.

 Soon, pizza gained tremendous popularity among the Italian people and in 1897 the first pizza was produced for the U.S. public by Antonio Totonno Pero who worked as an employee at Gennaro Lombardi's small grocery store in New York City's Little Italy.

Today, pizza has managed to become one of the main components of the growing U.S. restaurant chains. As early as 1954, Shakey's Pizza and Pizza Hut begun their pizza business and today, every U.S. city has a number of pizza restaurants to serve the ongoing needs of people for pizza.

 In fact, the American pizza business is dominated by companies that specialize in pizza delivery and well-known brands, like Domino's, Little Caesar's, Papa John's Pizza among many others serve the needs of the U.S. customers on a daily basis.

The crust of pizza is traditionally plain, but companies have introduced variations with butter, garlic, or herbs and recently crust stuffed with cheese. Topped with tomato sauce and a number of ingredients, from pepperoni to mushrooms and bacon to spinach, today's pizzas are capable of feeding a large family or a group of friends watching a game on TV.

Leftover Pizza Recipes

Leftover Pizza Recipes

Are looking for the quickest pizza recipe, the easiest pizza recipe, and the best tasting pizza recipe? Look no further then last night's leftovers.

That's right. Those containers of recently munched on Chinese food, that uneaten slab of beef those leftover stir fry veggies or the vodka sauce from last night's pasta can all help you harness the power of the pizza gods and bestow upon you a terrific tasting, one of a kind pizza.

Not sold on using leftovers to make pizza? An added bonus of making "leftovers" pizza is that it simplifies the pizza making process; allowing pizza to take its rightful place as the mid-week, after work, after grad-school, after the gym dinner that it was intended to be.

Before you go all willy-nilly-mad-scientist on your pizza, you might consider the following:

o Don't overtop your pizza

Imagine, if you will, what the bottom of your oven will look like caked with pizza toppings. Or worse, how your pants or shirt will look stained with pizza sauce. Despite my personal beliefs, pizza stained clothes never impress or so I am told. So be sure to use an appropriate amount of toppings. And that goes for calzones too, which tend to leak if overstuffed.

o Don't mix flavors that taste bad together

Braunsweiger and peanut butter or how about sweet and sour chicken and refried beans? Unless you are under attack by mid-pregnancy flavor cravings,it's better to stick with the flavor pairings that you already know and love.

o Avoid wet soggy leftovers if possible

While this may seem like a no brainer, cold items can fool you. Even a mildly moist item may leak fluid when heated.

o Experimenting with pizza toppings is always fun

It is always fun to experiment with pizza toppings to create new pizza recipes.

 Try changing your cheese combinations; who is up for an asiago/fontina blend over beef and broccoli leftovers? Maybe add a little cheddar, brie, or chabichou du poitou to your mozzarella topping to spice things up a bit.

History Of Chicago Style Pizza

History Of Chicago Style Pizza

The Chicago-style "deep-dish" pizza that many people love was invented at Pizzeria Uno, in Chicago, in 1943, reportedly by Uno's founder Ike Sewell, a former University of Texas football star. However, a 1956 article from the Chicago Daily News asserts that Uno's original pizza chef Rudy Malnati developed the famous recipe.

The pizza's foundation is simple. It uses a thick layer of dough (made with olive oil and cornmeal) that is formed to a deep round pan and pulled up the sides. The pizza crust is then parbaked before the toppings are added to give it greater spring.

Parbaking is a cooking technique in which a bread or dough product is partially baked and then rapidly frozen or cooled. The raw dough is baked as if normal, but halted at about 80% of the normal cooking time, when it is rapidly cooled and frozen. The partial cooking kills the yeast in the bread mixture, and sets the internal structure of the proteins and starches (the spongy texture of the bread), so that it is now essentially cooked inside, but not so far as to have generated "crust" or other externally desirable qualities that are difficult to preserve once fully cooked.

The crust is then covered with cheese (generally sliced mozzarella) and covered with meats and/or vegetables such as Italian sausage, onions, and bell peppers. A sauce consisting of crushed or pureed tomatoes is then added. Usually this is topped with a grated cheese blend to add additional flavor. On the usual pizza, about a pound of cheese is added. Because of the amount of ingredients in this style of pizza, it is usually eaten with a knife and fork. It's quite messy to eat with your fingers.

In addition to Uno, additional famous deep-dish restaurants include Uno's companion restaurant Due, which was opened just down the block by Sewell in 1955. However, a year before, in 1954, The Original Gino's Pizza, located on Rush Street, opened its doors, and 12 years later in 1966, Gino's East opened.

 Other deep dish restaurants include Edwardo's, Connie's, Giordano's, Carmen's, Pizano's (which is owned by Rudy Malnati's son, Rudy Jr.), and Lou Malnati's (which was begun by another of Rudy Malnati's sons and is now run by his grandsons and has 26 Chicago area locations).

Chicago deep-dish pizza is famous throughout the world. Accordingly, many Chicago deep-dish pizza restaurants will ship their pizzas, partially baked, within the continental U.S.

In the mid-1970s, two Chicago chains, Nancy's, founded by Rocco Palese, and Giordano's began experimenting with deep dish pizza and created the stuffed pizza. Palese based his creation on his mother's recipe for scarciedda, an Italian Easter pie from his hometown of Potenza. A Chicago Magazine article featuring Giordano's stuffed pizza popularized the dish. Other pizzerias that make stuffed pizzas include Bacino's, Edwardo's and Carmen's. Most also make thin crust pizzas.

Stuffed pizzas are often even taller than deep-dish pizzas, but otherwise, it can be hard to see the difference until you cut into it. A stuffed pizza generally has much higher topping density than any other type of pizza. As with deep-dish pizza, a thin layer of dough forms a bowl in a high-sided pan and the toppings and cheese are added. Then, an additional layer of dough goes on top and is pressed to the sides of the bottom crust.

At this stage of the process, the thin dough top has a rounded, domed appearance. Pizza makers often puncture a small hole in the top of the "pizza lid" to allow air and steam to escape while cooking. This allows the pizza sauce to permeate through the pie. Pizza sauce is added to the top crust layer and the pizza is then baked.

Chicago pan pizza in Chicago is similar to the traditional deep-dish style pizza served in other areas of the country, and baked in a similar deep-sided pan, but its crust is quite thick -- a cross between the buttery crisp crust and focaccia.

 Toppings and cheese frequently go on the top of a pan pizza, rather than under the sauce as is traditionally the case with deep-dish and stuffed pizza. The placement of the cheese and toppings on top make the pan pizza variety similar to a thin-crust pizza with a thicker and larger crust.

Pizza Coupons

Pizza Coupons

Pizzas may have come from Italy, but they are popular foods all over the world. Pizzas can be made with all sorts of ingredients, including tomatoes, cheese, olives, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, peppers and even pineapple.

 Adding ingredients proportionately increases the price of pizzas. Depending on the number of toppings, pizza can get expensive at time. Since it is not possible to bargain for pizzas prices, using pizza coupons can relatively reduce costs.

Pizza coupons are discount statements that can be redeemed at particular pizza outlets. These discounts could pertain to cash discounts, more pizza for less cash, complimentary bread sticks and cola, or other special offers. Since everyone likes saving money, these coupons are a practical method to do just that. There are a number of people who even get free pizzas by using these coupons effectively.

Along with being effective tools for customers, pizza coupons are an effective and profitable marketing strategy for pizza businesses. These coupons are specially designed to increase sales volumes. Essentially discounts almost always attract consumers.

 In most cases, in order to take advantage of a discount, consumers have to purchase a pizza. The redeemable pizza coupon helps in reducing the bill. However, in this process pizza owners are guaranteed more customers.

From the owner's perspective, pizza coupon results vary from month to month. In most cases however, the amount a customer spends affects the discount rate. These coupons are mostly designed to reduce bills percentage-wise, but large bills are always the most profitable for the store. Depending on the business the store does, the kind of pizza coupons that work for a certain pizzeria may not have the same results for another establishment. This is why pizza coupons vary so much between different businesses.

Pizza coupons are often available in the Yellow Pages. Other sources could be a pizzeria itself. At times, pizza places provide coupons to customers visiting the outlet, which are redeemable on future visits.

 Newspapers and magazines are widely used by pizza businesses to distribute pizza coupons. These coupons can be found in a coupon book that can be purchased for a nominal amount, or comes for free in the mail.

The Art of Pizza Making - Review

The Art of Pizza Making - Review

Best selling novels and tell-alls stay on the bestseller list for weeks if they are really good or topical. Most new books disappear from the public eye in days.

 The exceptions are cookbooks. A good cookbook can keep its buzz for years. Some cookbooks are treated like family heirlooms and get passed from generation to generation.

The Art of Pizza Making by Dominick A. Deangelis has been around since 1991 and it shows no signs of slowing down. People who bought it, or were lucky enough to get it as a gift, a month or so ago have tried the methods and the recipes and now cannot wait to write their review on Amazon. Maybe the Art of Pizza Making is working its way into heirloom status.

Almost everybody likes pizza. Anybody who has had an exceptionally good pizza loves it, and the sensation of taste of that one pizza slice has been permanently implanted into the nether regions of their brain. Pizza ingredients are salty, sweet and acidic, so maybe a good pizza is like red wine that unlocks every taste receptor in your body and keeps you wanting more.

The Art of Pizza Making is the real deal. The author covers every step of the pizza making process and tells you exactly what you have to do to make exceptional tasting pizza with just the right crispness and texture.

 The news may be disappointing to the home chef because some of the ingredients are available only in large quantities from restaurant supply houses. For example, Deangelis wants you to use a particular kind of flour with a very specific proportion of gluten. Neither grocery store all-purpose flour nor bread making flour fit the parameters he is look for.

You will need a stand mixer with a bread hook. The author recommends a Kitchenaid but says that any 250W stand mixer will probably do the trick. If you get serious about pizza making forget the Kitchenaid and look for a DeLhongi stand mixer. When you are not making pizza you can power a small boat with it.

This book not only tells you what type of flour,cheese,and tomato base to use, but how to kneed the dough, how long to let it rise, and what preparation temperature you need the dough at to make the perfect crust. If you follow the directions in the book and use the same ingredients, or as close as you can get to the right ingredients, you will make a pizza as good as or better than any franchise pizza store. If you love pizza you need this book.

Beyond the book but essential information for pizza making success nonetheless is your oven. The very best pizza is made in brick ovens fired by open flames at temperatures far greater than most home ovens can achieve.

 One way around this limitation is a nifty gadget created by Villaware. You put their pizza maker on top of your gas or charcoal grill which can produce a very high temperature. The permeable clay stone on the Villaware pizza maker will allow the flames to cook the pizza evenly, making a crisp crust each and every time. The built in thermometer will help you hit the correct temperature.

The Pizza Battle to be Supreme

The Pizza Battle to be Supreme

Imagine this scenario, your talking to a friend on your cell phone and all of a sudden your phone beeps, you look at the screen and what do you see.

 Click now and save $2 off of your online pizza order. Yes, it can happen! The big 3 of the pizza world are striving to be the first at every angle.

 In today's market the massive money of Papa Johns, Domino's, and Pizza Hut just over powers the rest of the industry. These three companies have the power to rule the industry in the brick and mortar side and in the internet world.

 They have all built their sites with online pizza ordering, printable coupons, and they even placed you on their e-mail list.

Dominos pizza is the first of the three to introduce mobile pizza ordering. Is it crazy to think of it? No, the majority of our tech lifestyle is spent on the cell phone or in front of the computer now a days and they are using this to their advantage. 

If the statistics show that it's working then, it's only a matter of time before Pizza Hut and Papa John's pizza role out their cell phone ordering package.

So what does all this do for you as a consumer? It provides an easy way for you to order a pizza at almost any time of the day or any place in the world.

 They give you the opportunity to save money on every pizza order with their printable coupons and advertised specials. They continue to introduce new pizza's to entice your taste bud's. 

Their marketing techniques are cut throat because they know it is a multi-billion dollar industry and they all want to be at the top of the list.