Category: Blog

National Cheese Pizza Day

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In honor of National Cheese Pizza Day we wanted to show different types of pizza and cheeses that are typically used.

  1. A pizza type you may have heard of is the deep dish pizza. This kind of pizza is widely known for coming from Chicago, you can’t think of deep dish without Chicago! It has been around since 1943 according to the Chicago Tribune (1. Chicago Tribune). The pizza is made typically with an iron skillet or a deep dish pizza pan instead of the usual style with flat pizza pans.

2. Margherita Pizza is made with a few simple ingredients that include fresh basil, mozzarella, and tomatoes. This pizza style can be found as far back as 1886 in the cookbook of Francesco DeBouchard called “Customs and Traditions of Naples, pg 124” according to (2. Italy Magazine). The version Chef Raffaele Eposito made in honor of Queen Margherita, and to represent the flag of Italy became the one that is made even nowadays.

  1. Calzones are another type of pizza. It roughly translates to trousers or pant legs in Italian since we can bring the calzone with us and walk around with it. Calzones are made by taking a whole pizza to fold in half giving us the half-moon shape that we know. You can fill the calzone before baking with fillings such as meat or even making a fruity version with something like apples as well. Brushing the top of the calzone with garlic, and olive oil along with marina sauce on the side is how they are typically enjoyed.

  1. Stromboli can be mistaken for calzone but they are two different things. Stromboli is made by rolling the dough and sealing it compared to a calzone being made by folding in half. Interestingly enough the Stromboli was thought to be created in Philadelphia, and could be possibly named after Mt. Stromboli in Italy (3. Stromboli Information).

  1. Neapolitan pizza is the base for the pizza that we are familiar with today. When it was first made, it did not include cheese. It can also be considered a marinara pizza since there is more sauce than cheese. Due to more sauce being used, it is typically made smaller and cooked with less time than a regular sized pizza.
  1. Marinara pizza is a very simple pizza as well. It is made with very few ingredients with tomato, oregano, garlic, and olive oil. Raffaele Eposito built upon this pizza type to make the margherita pizza.

  1. Lahm bi ajeen which translates to ‘meat with dough’. The dish comes from the middle east (4. Lahm bi ajeen origin) and can be dated back to the 13th It is a flat bread with meat on top beef, lamb or both are used as well. Tomato sauce is cooked with the meat instead of being layered like a typical pizza. This is a lighter take on a pizza and would be a dish that is unique. (Link for the recipe and credit to this paragraph can be found here: Recipe and History of Lahm bi ajeen)

Cheese –

[Picture credit: //www.savoryexperiments.com/homemade-mozzarella-cheese/]

Fresh mozzarella is made with either cow or water buffalo milk. Fresh made also has more nutritional value than you think. Every ounce of cheese is already eighteen percent of the calcium that is recommended for the day. Using fresh cheese ends up being a great choice because of how much you get from one slice, you get more “bang for your buck”. Packaged mozzarella is popular in pizza making since it tends to melt faster due to the amount of oil with the cheese. Aging of cheese is also important to the quality of the cheese as well. If the cheese has not been aged enough the texture is not going to be as soft, and will not be as flavorful. If the cheese has been over aged, it will end up being too soft, and not having the right texture for making pizza or eating (5. Delco Foods) .

 

 

Pandemic Sweets N Treats

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Apple Crumble Cookies
Apple Crumble Cookies where Chefsville instructors introduce fruits and cut sugar by 1/2.

After being in isolation from the pandemic for 6 months, many parents have realized that kids love sweets. Some of us are bringing out our inner chefs by baking more, while others are stocking up on store-brand sweets and treats filled with sugar from the store.

Chefsville wanted to offer a slightly different approach to appeasing our little chefs who love sweets.

1) Build your own yogurt parfaits, bake your own cookies, scones, and introduce more fruit desserts.
“Building your own” is fun and ingredients can be swapped to introduce new flavors and flavor combinations to help kids get past the picky eater stage.

Peach Dutch Boy Pancake Poof

2) When baking, reduce the sugar by 25%.
In other parts of the world, kids love sweets too but kids are given sweets with much less sugar. Why then does the American diet have so much sugar? Well, we all got hooked on national brand sweets and treats as far back as 100 years ago. Sugar is cheap and kept kids loaded with energy. Back then kids went outside to play, had responsibilities on the farm and did much more physical activity than today. Nowadays, with so much video play and excessive screen time, kids don’t use the same outlets that prior generations used. However, the producers of sweets never backed off on the sugar content. So America got hooked!

3) Change up the flour. Again in America, all-purpose flour is cheap.
However, to be honest, wheat’s color is not “white”. When purchasing all-purpose flour there are 3 words clearly marked on all bags, boxes and labels – “Bleached, Enriched, Sifted”.

Enriched Bleached & Sifted
Label on All-Purpose Flour
“Bleached” means that the flour was ground and put through a bleaching process. This process strips and kills the healthy part of the wheat.

“Enriched” means that the fall away parts of the wheat during the bleaching processed are re-introduced back into the mix before the sale.

Other countries don’t dominate their baked goods with wheat flour. They use many other kinds of flour. Sweets and treats and sweets made with up to 50% almond flour provide a more healthful option. Feel free to use this replacement often – use up to 50% “almond flour”. There is also rice flour, tapioca flour, coconut flour, bean flour and other nut flours. The demand for these flours has increased to the point that they can be found in your local convenience store.

4) How about making biscotti?
Show kids what they can do with twice-cooked cookies.
Chefsville has a chocolate biscotti and an orange & almond biscotti recipe perfect for any occasion.

The suggestions above will help kids get their sweet treats but with less sugar and hopefully less headache for adults. This sounds like a win-win for everyone.

Chocolate Biscotti v2
Biscotti – Orange and Almond v2

Please stay safe always!

Reduce Ultra-Processed Foods

Processed Foods Modern Definitions Reduce Ultra-Processed Foods

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There have been lots of talks about how to classify processed foods. Here is a modern approach being accepted across the nation from NIH (National Institutes of Health):

1) unprocessed or minimally processed,
2) processed culinary ingredients,
3) processed foods, and
4) ultra-processed food and drink products.

Unprocessed foods include edible parts of plants or animals, as well as fungi and algae. These are found to be fresh, frozen, or even fermented. Foods that have not been treated with additives, injected with salt or rubbed with oil prior to consumption. Examples are dry beans; grains like rice; fresh or dried mushrooms; meat and dairy products; seafood; plain yogurt; nuts; fresh herbs and spices.

Processed culinary ingredients involve some steps when getting ready for the market (production). These are ingredients made from unprocessed foods, like vegetable oils, butter, and lard. Foods like honey from combs, sugar from cane, and syrup from maple trees are part of this group.

Processed foods are products that have been infused with sugar, salt, and/or fat to help improve how long they remain on the shelves in stores. These include Canned fruits, fermented yeast breads (most breads), alcohol, cheese, pickles, and salted nuts.

Ultra-processed foods are ready to eat or ready to heat items. In short, foods that have been processed significantly for many reasons to make consumers happy.

Ultra-processed foods are made often in a factory, broken down from their whole or fresh form and treated with colors, thickeners, glazes, and additives. They may be fried then canned or packaged or wrapped. Foods here in this category may contain high-fructose corn syrup, protein isolates, or interesterified oils that replace trans-fats. Examples of ultra-processed foods include packaged granola bars, carbonated soft drinks, candy, mass-produced bread, margarine, energy drinks, canned or jarred cheeses, flavored yogurt, chicken nuggets, deli meats, hot dogs and pizza.

Reduce Ultra-Processed Foods

When research “strongly suggests“, I can’t use the words “have proof” (might be offensive to some), that foods that are ultra-processed are linked to weight gain, increased rates of various cancers, chronic inflammation and early death.

Studies are being released almost monthly showing the effects of processed foods. It is most unlikely that all of us will hop on the “all-natural” bandwagon. However, if we can make small shifts towards less ultra-processed food intake, it most likely will result in our having much better health and happiness.

Scientists consider food to be processed if it’s made with additives and preservatives for flavor and freshness, like sugar, salt, and/or oil.

Consumers feel that processed foods should be defined as such if the food has artificial preservatives. Therefore, the grocery shopper feels the list of processed foods is much smaller than the scientists’ list.

The main attraction for processed foods is that they are available at a very inexpensive cost. This is true with flour, sugar, soda pop, table salt and many other products. Early in the 1900s, as machines began to process more and more food, prices dropped. Consumer education on how food is processed was also kept silent as new food manufacturers wanted to introduce their product. Also back then, food could have more claims to health benefits without consequences. Today, we live in a very consequential society and information sharing is promoted with equal importance as the products we purchase.

The bottom line is that if we as consumers want information, we can find it. However, most consumers are blind and uncaring about what they purchase until health problems emerge.

As processed foods are under much scrutiny, new findings from recent studies suggest there is something different about how quickly our bodies take in processed foods and how those foods interact with key hormones that help regulate our appetites.

This makes a great case for learning how to cook.

For now, Chefsville wants to help by suggesting that families take steps to reduce their intake of ultra-processed foods. Bit by bit. Replace one each month with more natural foods. In a year, we would love to hear how well you are feeling and what steps were taken to get there.

Source: NIH Study reported by Cell.com

Links: NIH Nova Classifications
//www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/ultra-processed-foods#1
//www.heartandstroke.ca/articles/what-is-ultra-processed-food