Cooking Nice

Posts Tagged ‘Pizza’

If you want to make your own pizza at home, you’ll need a pan of one sort or another. There are many different types of pizza pans you can choose from. You’ll want to pick one that works best for the kind of pizza you want to make and works best with your oven or grill.

The Ins and Outs of Pizza Stones

Pizza stones are fairly popular. Made from real stone or clay, these flat surfaces warm up as the oven warms up. You then put the pizza onto the hot stone for cooking. This makes a very crisp crust that you really can’t get any other way. Pizza stones are heavy and need special care. You will need a pizza peel to place and remove the pizza from the hot stone. Keep corn meal on hand to scatter on the stone to keep the dough from sticking. Using a stone may take a bit of practice, but they are excellent if you love thin, crisp pizzas.

Pizza pans made from metal are easy to find. You can find them made especially for Sicilian, thin crust and deep dish pizzas. Each kind is available in many different sizes so you can choose one that is right for you. They also come in different metals. While it is true that metal pans don’t crisp the crust as well as a stone, you can get closer to that quality with a perforated pizza pan. The holes in the bottom allow the moisture to evaporate during baking. Pizza pans make excellent serving dishes for your pizzas, though you should not slice the pizza while it is on the pan.

Most of the pans you find when you go shopping are made for thin pizza. These pans are often displayed on the wall at pizzerias to show you the sizes available. Aluminum is the most frequent metal used, though you can find stainless steel if you look. Anodized aluminum lasts a long time and works very well.

While the history of pizza has shown a majority of thin crust pizzas, deep dish pizzas have been growing in popularity for decades. Mostly associated with Chicago style pizza, deep dish pizzas require a deeper pan. You can’t make a deep dish pizza on a thin crust pan. You can get deep dish pans with or without perforations. Choose the one that would work best for you. If you like a corn meal crust, you will want to skip the holes so they corn meal doesn’t fall to the bottom of your oven.

Sicilian pans are usually square. They can be 1 or 2 inches deep. You can also find them in a rectangular shape. You want a nice, sturdy pan for these since many Sicilian pizzas call for the toppings to actually be pushed into the dough.

Choosing the pizza pan you prefer can be a personal thing. Luckily, most novelty pizzas just need a run of the mill thin crust pan. A fruit pizza recipe for instance, would have the cookie crust baked on the pan, and then you would let it cool before topping it with your favorite fruit.

If you want to use pans on your grill, be sure to ask which will work best at the kitchen supply store. Grills have very high heats that some pans may not tolerate as well as others.

This morning in the kitchen we’re cooking up some home-style pasta dishes with the Cardi’s family.

Healthy Yogi Chips from Wai Lana Yoga

Do you struggle figuring out what is for dinner? Every night you eat the same thing. You get back from a long tiring day of work and get home only to encounter another challenge. What will we eat? There aren’t any leftovers in the refrigerator to feed everyone. It seems like you just had everything you can think of. To make things even harder you don’t seem to have the ingredients to make a complete dinner. It seems that all you have are odds and ends. If you aren’t used to it yet, preparing vegetarian meals can be especially daunting to make because there is no meat main dish to start with. If you are not a vegetarian and you have chicken in the fridge, then you can start thinking of chicken main dishes. Vegetarian staples give you so many more choices than meats, so what you have does not necessarily narrow your choices any. The good news is that when you are out of ideas and out of inspiration, pizzas will come to your rescue.  Still need ideas? Here is a big list of tasty vegetarian recipes from Wailana.

Pizza is a common favorite food because it lends itself to so many variations while still including all of the necessary nutrition for a balanced, nutritious meal. Whatever you happen to have on hand will work to make a delicious pizza. You will surely discover some new flavor combinations by using leftovers on your pizza. Be as creative as you wish to make your vegetarian pizza, as long as you can include items to fit into the following categories.

Pizza Base
You may enjoy making your own pizza crust from scratch. All it takes is some flour, salt, oil, and leavening. You can also use pre-made pizza crusts or bread. Wai Lana Yoga has a nice onion-herb bread recipe that is delicious as a pizza crust.

Sauce
There are so many pizza sauce variations. While tomato based sauces are very popular and very easy make, they are not your only choice. If you do make a tomato based sauce, you will probably add a little bit of honey, some vinegar and some of your favorite herb seasonings to a can of tomato sauce. But even without tomato sauce, you can still make a pizza. White sauces are also very compatible with pizza. Use a traditional white sauce recipe that includes flour, fat and some yogurt for a low fat choice. Then, season your sauce however you prefer to do so. Use spices or add some vegetables or cheese right to the sauce. If a sauce is not going to work for you, you don’t need one. A third option is to brush your crust with olive oil. Try different spices to flavor it.

Toppings
Most people always use cheese as a pizza topping. It doesn’t matter what kind you have though. Mozzarella and cheddar are equally pleasing on a pizza. For something different, try feta. If you do not have cheese, that’s ok. The important thing is to include something with some fat and something with some protein. Olives, nuts, refried beans and tofu are all appropriate pizza toppings. In addition to your main topping, add plenty of fruits or vegetables. Peppers, pineapple, tomatoes and even broccoli can work with other pizza ingredients for a delicious variation. Be as creative as you want to be. Here are some other ideas and information on vegetarianism from Wai Lana.

By making pizza from leftovers you may stretch your definition of pizza little bit. Be as versatile as you want . There’s no more need to worry about what to cook.