My latest passion these days is taking up the fine art of making bread. And as much as I like making and baking, I’m also no Luddite. I love technology and embrace it at every opportunity I get. So with apologies to my wonderful bread baking grandmother, I think I’m going to be looking into a breadmaker for the house. My father-in-law was doing it a few years ago when he was a little more active, and I figure if he could do it and so can I.

Or, if you want to go all out, why not have a candy buffet toronto for the occasion?  I pretty much guarantee, that a buffet would be a huge hit.  With both young and old actually.  With that in mind, you may want to make sure the table it’s on is set just a little bit high.  High enough, that little fingers can’t gorge themselves all night long without getting their parents help/permission, but low enough so they can delight in all the goodies there.  It’s also a cool idea, to bring out the treats a little bit later after the main dinner, and during the dance.  you know about the time when that snack drives kicks in.  Make sure you bring plenty of memory for the video cameras though.  You can bet, that with all that added sugar, your going to see lots of high energy dance moves on the floor worthy of a highlight reel.

Fresh topping make any pizza better, and most are inexpensive and quick and easy to make.

It starts with the sauce.  In Italy, many pizza restaurants don’t use pizza sauce at all.  They simply use crushed San Marzano tomatoes as a topping.  If you’ve never cooked with San Marzanos, they’re well worth the extra expense.  And they can transform a pizza from so-so to sensational.

If you’ve tried and failed to make a pizza as good as your local pizza restaurant, San Marzanos are probably the secret ingredient that your pizza is missing.

They’re a little bit harder to find than regular tomatoes, but most gourmet or Italian groceries carry both whole and crushed San Marzanos in cans.

Drain them well before putting them on the pizza dough, and sprinkle them with a little minced garlic and herbs like basil and oregano.  Growing your own herbs and using them fresh will give your pizza a bright, clean taste.  But you can use dried herbs if that’s all you have.

If you prefer a sauce, sauté some minced garlic and sliced onions in a little extra virgin olive oil until they’re soft.  Then add the San Marzano tomatoes and their juice, and some herbs.

For a more complex flavor, add some red wine, or balsamic vinegar to your sauce.  And for a little zing, add some crush red pepper flakes.

Cook the sauce until it’s thick.  Let it cool.  Then puree it in a blender for a nice, smooth texture.

When it comes to pizza cheese, you probably just buy it at the grocery store.  But making your own mozzarella cheese isn’t hard, and it’s much better than the low-moisture variety that comes in plastic bags.  It’s not hard to make, and it really complements other pizza toppings.

You’ll need a 6 – 8 quart stainless steel stock pot and a candy thermometer, plus a few supplies that you can find at a health food store or organic grocery.  It’s worth the extra effort.

Find a recipe and directions at http://bestpizzatoppings.com/2010/02/the-best-pizza-cheese-mozzarella-cheese-that-you-make-yourself.

Making our own pizza toppings will help you get truly professional results at home.  Find more pizza restaurant secrets at http://bestpizzatoppings.com/category/pizza-restaurants.

The first step is to choose the right beef.  Leaner meat cooks faster and tends to come out tougher.  Instead, shoot for a lean to fat ratio of 70/30 for juicy and tender burgers.  You want it to be ground fresh, preferably at the time you purchase it.  If the beef has been ground well in advance, the fibers of the meat will begin to break down and become mushy.

Having a tool like a burger press will help make sure that all of your patties are uniform.  These tools allow you to weigh out patties to equal weights, then put them into the press to smash them into same size patties.  When all of your patties are the same size, you can predict and repeat good results much easier.

As for the grill, it has to be hot before anything goes down.  Get your charcoal lit, then let the grate sit on it for at least seven or eight minutes to make sure that it heats thoroughly.  This will help you get the restaurant style char marks on the patties.

The key for getting the perfect char marks is to let the patty sit on the grill for about a minute and a half, then turn it 30 degrees and let it sit for another minute and a half (or until the blood pools on the top of the patty).  At this point, flip the patty, and repeat.  You’ll get perfect, diamond shaped, char marks every time and your guests will think you are a professional cook!

Getting great results from the barbecue isn’t tough, but it takes some practice.  Sometimes the best burger recipe is the most simple one.  Get your burger press, beef, and fire up the grill to start making legendary burgers!

Freshly prepared soup made at home is so much more practical for your health and delicious than canned soup. Canned soups are full of preservatives and sodium, which can be detrimental to optimal health. They also just simply do not have the taste and texture as homemade soup.

Research has shown that the healing properties of soup may be more than just old folklore. Stephen Rennard, MD scientist from the University of Nebraska Medical Center decided to put the folklore to the test. In 1993, he brought his wife’s family recipe for chicken soup to his lab and studied it. He actually found that the soup had anti-inflammatory effects. The development of cold symptoms was slowed and cells bathed in chicken soup had an increased ability to fight the cold virus.

Dr. Rennard was unable to pinpoint the exact ingredient in the chicken soup that shortened the life of a cold and improved the movement of mucus. However, his belief was that the ingredients contained within worked synergistically to fight the cold virus.

Fortunately for us vegans, any freshly made soup containing organic ingredients will offer the same benefits as chicken soup provides to carnivores. Organic vegetables, garlic and onion as basic ingredients make a soup quite nutritious and pack it with anti-oxidants.

Vegan and vegetarian soups may actually offer more benefit than their carnivore counterparts. When made with the right mix of ingredients, they can be just as packed with protein and other nutrients without the artery clogging saturated fats that are found in meals that contain meat.

Vegetarian recipes for soup can be a wonderful meal or compliment for a meal. Warming and delicious, soup recipes can do a body good!

But seriously folks, I may be exaggerating my point just a little bit.  Not everything that tastes good is bad for you and vice versa.  I really think it’s just the way the food industry has been marketing to us over the years that has things all mucked up.  Perhaps, what I should have said, is that everything that tastes good and is cheap to manufacture/package is bad for you.  You know the stuff I’m talking about.  Basically all that stuff that comes in pretty packaging that couldn’t possibly be grown from the ground, or raised on the farm.  The stuff with too much sugar and lots of crappy carbs.  Yeech.  Sometimes, though it can be hard to resist.

Just this summer though, I did a little fitness routine for my body called P90X, that changed the way I look at food.  There is a whole nutrition guide that goes with the workouts that pretty much is a necessity if you want to be successful with the workouts.  It’s got the usual list of ingredients.  Protein, dairy, fruit, vegetables and carbs (the good ones).  There was also a big long list of a whole bunch of menu items that you could choose from.  I ended up picking and choosing the stuff that looked interesting and tasty to me.  What I found, is that with a bit of experimenting, I came up with a weekly menu that works pretty darn good for me.

Generally, for breakfast I eat one of two things.  Either a protein shake or a mushroom omlette (egg whites only) and cottage cheese.  My protein shake has skim milk, rasberries, a banana, vanilla protein powder, and a few ice cubes.  It’s very creamy, almost like having ice cream for breakfast.  But way more healthy for you.  The trick I found to spicing up the omlette was to basically spice it up.  A little cayenne pepper, garlic powder, or chipolte powder make a huge difference.  Some salsa and mushrooms in the middle make it even more interesting.

For snacks I do pistachio nuts, protein bars (chocolate/toffee/peanut butter), or almonds.  All foods I like.  Lunch is either a spinach/chicken/almond/pepper/raspberry vinaigrette salad, or a spinach/turkey/hot mustard flat bread wrap.  Again all foods I like.  That’s the trick really.  Finding the foods that work for you and taste good too.  Oh, and one other thing.  After working out every day, I get to indulge in a big 12oz glass of chocolate milk.  It’s really one of the best recovery drinks around, and it’s full of chocolate . . . mmmmm.