Free Italian Recipes - Pizza Margherita

Let's talk pizza! Here's one of my best free Italian recipes, that of pizza Margherita, which is the easiest of pizzas. Using this recipe as a base, you can add whatever you want on it!

What you need (1 serving):

125 g 00 flour
1 teaspoon brewer’s yeast
1 mozzarella
canned tomatoesor tomato sauce (NO ketchup!)
water
salt
sugar
extra virgin olive oil
basil

Let's do it!
Melt yeast in two fingers of warm water, then add just a bit of sugar and 2 teaspoons of flour. Mix it all and leave it for 15-20 minutes.
Pour the remaining flour in a bowl, adding half a teaspoon of salt, then 1 teaspoon of extravirgin olive oil, and in the end the previously prepared yeast. Work it all with a wooden spoon, then pour oil on your hands and use them to mix the dough. When your knuckles leave a dent and it rises again in no more than half a minute, than the dough is ok.
Let it rest for 3 hours, covered with a cotton or linen cloth.
Pre-heat your oven at 200°. Make a dish with your dough. It should be no higher than 2 or 3 mms. Pour tomato sauce on it, making sure you leave a white border. Ease yourself with a spoon. Cut mozzarella in small cubes or thin slices and add it on the tomato sauce. Add some extravirgin olive oil (be careful: it shouldn't be too much!) and cook it in your oven.
When your pizza is ready (it should take no more than 20 minutes if the oven was pre-heaten), add some basil leaves and eat!

While it cooks, you could wonder on where this Pizza found its name...
In about 1889, Queen Margherita took an inspection tour of her Italian Kingdom. During her travels around Italy she saw many people, especially the peasants, eating this large, flat bread. Curious, the queen ordered her guards to bring her one of these Pizza breads. She summoned Chef Raffaele Esposito from his pizzeria to the royal palace and ordered him to bake a selection of pizzas for her pleasure. To honor the queen who was so beloved by her subjects, Raffaele decided to make a very special pizza just for her. He baked it topped with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, to represent the colors of the Italian flag: red, white, and green. This became Queen Margherita's favorite pizza and when word got out that this was one of the queen's favorite foods, she became even more popular with the Italian people. She also started a culinary tradition, the Pizza Margherita, which lasts to this very day in Naples and has now spread throughout the world.

Claudia Resta is an Italian journalist. She works for an international satellite TV and specializes in traditional Italian cooking. She has two internet websites on which she writes free Italian recipes:
http://italianpastarecipes.blogspot.com
and
http://freeitalianrecipes.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Resta

The Best Italian Pasta Books

A good English language pasta book is hard to find. Sounds silly doesn't it, after all there are so many of them on the market.

Ten years of living in Italy and being married to a wonderful Italian chef (also a great lady) has helped me to realize that most of the pasta cook books on the market are not at all "authentic." The pasta dishes in Italy are just so wonderful and so varied but so few cook books reflect this. Something is always missing or the recipes have been changed greatly from the real Italian original. To illustrate my point, did you know the Pasta Alfredo does not even exist in Italy and neither does deep pan pizza.

Well getting back on track, my wife and I have kind of developed a pet project. We have vetted a whole bunch of books to find those that truly capture the real Italian cuisine. Many of these books reflect Italian cooking in general (see the link at the bottom of the page for details) and not just pasta. But when it comes to great English language books exclusively about pasta there is one that all pasta lovers should have handy in the kitchen. No doubt you already have it if you love cooking pasta, it is a real classic. The book is: Everyday Pasta.

Very well written and presented, our edition of this book is so well used that it is now very dog-eared. The recipes are ideal for that quick dinner or light lunch. They are easy to follow, very simple and yet they are really delicious. Some are slightly changed from the original Italian recipes but most are 100% authentic. I love the Capellini Piedmontese and the Fried Zucchini but there are many many more great dishes.

Everyday Pasta will sort you out with a good deal of pasta recipes but there is so much more to Italian cooking and my next article will be about a really special book with hundreds of quite magnificent recipes.

If you would rather not wait you can visit: http://www.my-italy-piedmont-marche-and-more.com/italian-food-books.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_J_Smith

Italian Cooking Recipes - Everything You Wanted To Know

If you are looking out for some fine tasting value additions to your recipe collection, and are fond of Italian cooking, why not take the time to learn more about specialized cuisine from Italy and pick up some great new and authentic Italian cooking recipes?

You can find Italian cooking recipes in many places, beginning with the comfort of your own home, using the Internet to connect to a whole new virtual world of great and exciting cultures and cuisine contained in web sites devoted to them and world cuisine secrets! Yes, you are bound to find what you need and beyond that too - for an online search is the right platform that will guide you towards a wealth of information you can use and recipes ideas numbering so many, you won't know what to do!

Do remember to select the web sites that offer varied and interesting ones given by professional chefs, home-cooking experts as well as beginners like yourself, all of whom are bound to have a meal option that is suitable for each level of learning you go through. Some places may only offer cooking tips and the pitfalls you should avoid, others can let in you on their kitchen disaster stories so you know how "not" to do things - and still others can guide you on best-kept secrets of top chefs, and you can end up making the best Pasta-dish ever!

The art of this is a fun and easy way to learn about using new and varied food items and natural herbs reliance you may have never used before for lack of knowledge and thus, begin on an interesting new gastronomical journey to tickle your taste buds, heighten your senses and change the moods for everyone around.

Once you have mastered the art of Italian cooking recipes and can prepare delicious, new and unique meals by yourself, you can invite guests and loved ones to sample your fare and are bound to revel in the praise and success that comes your way, having adapted these to their tastes! The possibilities of your learning new ones and then passing them on to other novices is also open and perhaps, you can tap into hidden passions to become a professional chef in Italian cooking yourself.

Not only easy, but convenient to make and full of natural, fresh ingredients favored by the Italians, these can be adjusted according to the skill level of the learner and the budget they can afford; some can contain expensive ingredients but others have substitutes handy for those on a limited budget.

The comfort level of eating Italian cooking recipes based meals is high and people learn these by tuning in to demos, buying recorded cookery show info, enrolling for a specialty cuisine course or even taking the advice of established home-cooks. Watching and learning from cooking tutorials contained in DVDs are not only convenient but practical too as you can stop and resume your cooking class at your leisure, so learn better

Abhishek is a cooking enthusiast! Visit his website http://www.Cooking-Guru.com and download his FREE Cooking Report "Master Chef Secrets" and learn some amazing Cooking tips and tricks for FREE! Learn how to create the perfect meal on a shoe-string budget. And yes, you get to keep all the accolades! But hurry, only limited Free copies available.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Abhishek_Agarwal

Basic Ingredients For Italian Recipes

So you've decided you're going to start doing some more Italian cooking. You've found a great database of Italian recipes and you're excited about wading into the world of pasta, pesto and parmagiana.

It would be helpful to have on hand some staple ingredients that are found in a lot of Italian cooking. That way, you'll be able to get your fix of Italian food any day, without extensive grocery shopping. Let's look at some of them!

Garlic: It may sound like a cliché, but this humble bulb has a place in just about all Italian cooking. Keep it in a cool, dry place such as a root cellar or pantry. When buying garlic, look for bulbs with no dark discoloration on the bottom. This may indicate age or molding.

Tomato sauce: Don't go expensive here. The house brand at your local grocer and the national brands will be impossible to tell apart if you put them in a bowl. Avoid the "preseasoned" blends, as you'll be adding your own herbs and spices to your recipe.

Pasta: Don't buy a huge amount of any one specific noodle. Rather, keep a small amount of the most common types, such as spaghetti, linguine, elbow macaroni, small and large shells and wide egg noodles. For storage, it helps if you can keep long noodles in a long container. Most plastic ware makers have a "pasta keeper" of some sort available.

Parmesan cheese: While it may not always be an ingredient, freshly ground Parmesan is almost always a welcome addition on top of a pasta dish. Kraft has a new "fresh shreds" product with a block of cheese in a container with its own grater. It works very well, and the price is not exorbitant.

Olive oil: One mistake many Italian-food rookies make is using expensive extra-virgin olive oil for things like pan-frying. Use standard olive oil, which will be yellow in color and as much as 50 percent cheaper, for these purposes. You'll still get all the health benefits!

Keep your pantry properly stocked, and you'll be prepared to cook any Italian recipes you wish!

Andrew Krause is a Chef and Pastry Chef for over 30 years, at persent I own a Gourmet Bakery called The Cheese Confectioner. You can visit my site at http://www.andies.cashhosters2.com

NOTE: You are welcome to reprint this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the about the author info at the end).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Krause

Italian Pasta Recipe - Pipe Pasta with Eggplants

This is one of the quickest Italian pasta recipes and, as it is made with tomatoes and eggplants only, is very low on fats content!
It comes from my grandmother's cookbook and I remember that all of my family was really happy when we saw this incredible pasta for lunch or for dinner.
It's great even if your fridge is completely empty (mine often is, especially when I work a lot) and you still want to enjoy what you eat, or you discover by surprise that you have someone for dinner.

Ingredients (4 people):
320 g durum wheat pipe pasta (be careful to buy durum wheat pasta, not soft wheat one: real Italian pasta recipes need this kind of pasta!)
300 g eggplants
200 g mature tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
a bit of oregano
salt

How to do it!
Put on fire a medium-sized pot with abundant water and half a hand-cup of sea salt.
Wash eggplants, peel them and cut them into small cubes.
In a pan, put some olive oil. When it's hot, pour in the cubes.
Cut your tomatoes into big cubes and in the meantime fry eggplants adding more olive oil. Mix them well and add oregano.
Add tomato cubes, a cup of the boiling water and a bit of salt. Turn fire to its minimum and go on cooking it for 5 minutes.
When water is boiling, pour in your pasta. When it's nearly cooked, drain it and pour pasta into the pan. Mix it all for a couple of minutes and... eat!

Claudia Resta is an Italian journalist. She works for an international satellite TV and specializes in traditional Italian cooking. She has two internet websites on which she writes free Italian recipes:
http://italianpastarecipes.blogspot.com
and
http://freeitalianrecipes.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Resta

Seven Smart Ways To Prepare For The Upcoming BBQ Season

That's right it's almost BBQ time again. Now's the time to start preparing, before it's the Fourth of July and time has gotten away from you! Here are seven great tips to get the season started off right.

Tip #1 Clean your grill. Use a pipe wire cleaner or wire brush to make sure that the grill is free of rust, dirt, spider-webs and other debris.

Tip #2 Examine all hoses leading from the tank to the burners. Replace if cracked or damaged.

Tip #3 Find any leaks by applying a 50/50 solution of water and dish soap to propane cylinder connections and hoses. If bubbles appear, tighten the connection and or replace the damaged parts and retest.

Always be careful when igniting any BBQ grill but once the cleaning and safety inspection is done then the fun can begin.

Tip #4 Get some new grilling gadgets. There are also a few basic tools that every backyard BBQ cook will need. You'll need a wide spatula, grill tongs, meat fork, grill brush, barbeque mitts, a meat thermometer and a spray bottle. A fun addition to this list is the Maverick Voice Alert Remote BBQ Thermometer Silver. It actually talks to you and tells you when your food is almost ready. Imagine hanging out in the yard with your family and not having to hover over the grill to make sure your dinner doesn't burn.

Tip #5 Spice it up. You may also want to consider trying something a little different this year with some of your recipes so that it will 'spice' up your season just right. Dry rubs and tangy gourmet barbeque sauces add a zing to weekend barbeques. Try something new to make this summer special.

Tip #6 Smoke it. Smoker bags, smoking chips and good old fashioned smokers add a new flavor to the same old meats. Chicken, pork, and even fish can become something extra special with a little smoking.

Tip #7 Try a new recipe. Whether you visit your local bookstore or find your recipes online a new recipe can add a little fun to a weekday meal. Grilling is often quick and easy - a perfect way to bring the family together for weekday meals.

Let this be the year that you start out being prepared that way you can sit back and relax once it is here. Knowing that you will have a safe and enjoyable BBQ season can make all the difference in the world.

Visit http://www.mysecretpantry.com for all of your barbeque needs! Also see the recipes included at My Secret Pantry for a wonderful grilling season!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=L._Moses

Cooking Tips To Make It Easy And Tasty

In today's busy lifestyle cooking food has somewhat become a far away notion. Options like take away food and fast food have added to the cause and so did the food fusion joints that are coming up in every corner of the streets. Lots of views are put forward on the usefulness to learn cooking, together with individual empowerment, expression of originality, health issues and expenditure. Any one can cook very easily and tasty stuff if he or she is keen to make a sincere attempt.

If you know how to cook then it improves your self-assurance or confidence as you are no longer dependent on someone else for your own food. Then there is no necessity for you to look for food joints or restaurants. And moreover you don't have to rush for their opening or closing hours. With a little bit of guidance which you can obtain from the internet or from some recipe books available, you can cook as good and tasty as you will find in the food joints. And it also improves your patience and sometimes it is a pastime.

From the ancient days till today a good cook or chef is always admired for his or her talent and people are always in the search of good foodstuff. Tasty cooking demonstrates the ability of a person to combine different ingredients and making it a special preparation which any one will love to have. Today good chefs are in huge demand in hotels and restaurants.

Foods that you get outside are prepared in such a way that you like their tastes. And in making it more delicious and tasty more oil, fat, sugar salt and many other things are added for better flavor and taste. But if you cook your meal or food at home it gives you the opportunity to cook according yourself using less calories and less fat which is would definitely be healthier for you. So it will keep you in better shape and form. If you are consuming food from outside on a regular basis, it will definitely take its toll on your health and fitness.

Nowadays going out and having food in restaurants are becoming very costly and sometimes not suitable for our pocket. Moreover you have to book and reserve your places or tables before hand which is very annoying sometimes. So cooking at home is a good option especially when you are willing to avoid spending money and keep yourself healthy. Cooking also allows you to spend some quality time with your family. Starting cooking at home and soon you will not only begin to enjoy it but find it relaxing too.

Suzane Dass is a cooking enthusiast and had spent experimenting with fusion foods for sometime now. So, cooking is not only her passion but also a way of life. You can find her cooking tips in blogs and her website http://cooking.infoindetails.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suzane_Dass