pizza fan club

National Pizza Holidays

September 17, 2022 (updated October 16, 2023) Published by Only Pizza Fans

Did you know that there are numerous of pizza holidays that we miss out on? Once you know all the holidays dedicated to pizza, you’ll stop missing them and become a true pizza fan. So what holidays should we be aware of? Every holiday that celebrates all things pizza!

National Cheese Pizza Day

On September 5th each year we celebrate National cheese pizza day. This day celebrates the basic cheese pie. All you need is the crust, sause and plenty of cheese.

National Pepperoni Pizza Day

September 20th is when we celebrate one of themost populat pizza toppings in America called pepperoni. On this day your pizza should include this one single toppings whether it’s turkey pepperoni, vegan pepperoni or the real thing.

National Pizza Month

There is one month where you can eat pizza every day and not have any guilt. Octoner is national pizza month so go ahead and order that pizza, or better yet, make it at home. This month should be dedicated to trying a different pizza every day, or as many as possible.

National Sausage Pizza Day

Another pizza holiday you have to try and remember is National Sausage Pizza Day. This is celebrated on October 11th of each year. I do love a good Polish kielbasa and need to make sure I have some ready for my pizza.

World Pizza Makers Day

If you make pizza on a daily basis or often, you can join in on this pizza holiday. World Pizza Makers Day is celebrated October 25th. Make sure to go to your favorite pizza restaurant and thank your pizzaioli for making the best pies!

National Pizza with the Works except Anchovies Day

One day a year we tell anchovies lovers enough is enough! We don’t want anchovies on our pizza, at least I don’t. Perhaps anchovies pie was the first “pizza” ancient Greeks made but I’ll pass. On November 12th, we should order the weirdest pies we can think of, just hold the anchovies.

National Pizza Pie Day

On February 9th, we can all join in and celebrate our favorite pizza holiday. On this day, you should have at least one pie with your friends and family.

National Pi Day

If you remember anything from school it should be that pi equals 3.14(159265359). While some people eat a sweet pie, others choose to celebrate with another round pie, pizza pie! Needless to say, this day is celebrated on March 14th.

National Deep Dish Pizza Day

While I’m not the biggest fan of deep dish pizza, it deserves it’s own holiday. On April 5th, we celebrate deep dish pizza day. You don’t have to live in Chicago in order to join in on this pizza holiday. You can go to your local Uno’s Pizzeria and eat the deep dish that started it all.

National Pizza Party Day

There really isn’t a party unless you have some pizza! National Pizza Party day is celebrated on the 3rd Friday in May. So grab your friends, get some pies, and party like pizza is life!

Pizza Margherita Day

One of my favorite pizza pies is the classic, simple, Neapolitan Margherita pizza. It’s said that the pie was named after Queen Margherita of Savoy. The national holiday is celebrated on June 11th of each year.

Which of the above pizza holidays is your favorite?

Nominate Your Favorite Pizza Spot

August 29, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

Do you have a favorite pizza spot that you want the whole world to know about? If you do, nominate your favorite pizza shop here to show them your support!

In order to nominate the best pizza shop in your neighborhood you just need to comment below! Provide us their business location, address, and their number in the comments section below. What makes this pizza shop better than others? Let us know!

We will be selecting random winners from the compiled list. What do you get from doing this? You get a pizza pie on us! A surprise pizza pie waiting for you when you get home? Yes, please! Sign me up for that!

When you nominate your favorite pizza shop and win, we will also dedicate a blog post to that pizza shop and give them a shoutout on social media. What a great way to support your local pizza spot! So comment below now and let us know which pizza shop makes your mouth water every single time!

Make sure to use this format in the comments section below.

Pizza Spot: Name of pizza business
Pizza Location: Address
Phone Number:
Best Pizza at this Spot:

Free Pizza Giveaway Club

August 26, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

Welcome to Free Pizza Giveaway Club! If you love pizza and giveaways this is the club for you! Here we will post all of our giveaways that you can enter, free of charge! Every giveaway will have a start and end date and you get multiple chances to enter and win! Make sure to bookmark our Free Pizza Giveaway page so you can enter daily. Doing this will increase your chances of getting that free, delicious, pizza pie that you love!

Enter Current LIVE Free Pizza Giveaway Below

Make sure to like, follow, and comment to earn as many points as you can for your chance to win free pizza! Is there anything better than free pizza? I don’t think so! Enter now fo your chance to win FREE PIZZA!

You will find our most recent pizza giveaway below. the winner is shown under each Gleam widget. UIf they send us pictures of their pizza, we will update this post.

Making Vito Lacopelli Pizza Dough

August 25, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

After watching his video, twice, I decided it was time to make Vito Lacopelli pizza dough. If you want an authentic pizza dough recipe, you have to follow his to the letter! In order to do this, you need a food scale and measuring cups.

For the perfect pizza dough recipe, you will need to make the poolish. Poolish is made my mixing water, yeast and flour. This will essentially be your yeast that you use a day later with the rest of the ingredients. For the poolish you will need:

300 ml of water
300 gr of flour
5 grams of dry yeast
5 grams of honey

After mixing all the ingredients you place the mixture in an airtight container and leave it in the fridge 16-24 hours. I may have left it in there a little longer because my brain forgets easily.

The next day, I did the remaining steps of Vito Lacopelli pizza dough. For the next part you will need:

700 ml of water (3 cups of water)
1250 gr flour
40 gr salt

The first part is to mix 700 ml of water with the poolish. After incorporating this into a smooth consistency, you add half of the flour and mix some more. Once that is incorporated you add the salt and mix thoroughly. I did not do this step correctly. I mixed it enough but I should have probably done at least a minute or two not 15 seconds or so. Next, you add the remaining flour and create a loose dough ball.

Since I didn’t add enough water, my dough was a little harder. Vito’s dough was stickier so he covered it for 15 minutes and voila! It was perfect. I covered my dough for 20 minutes. The next step was to coat your hands with olive oil (I ran out and used canola) and loosely shape the dough into a round ball. Once you have your dough shape, coat your container or bowl with oil and place the dough inside. Let the dough rise for another 30 minutes then you can cut it into strips and smaller dough balls.

Perfect Pizza Dough Balls

This is where your scale will come in handy. You can make sure that every ball is equal or as close to equal in weight as possible. We aimed for 180 grams for every pizza dough ball. After letting the dough balls rise for two hours, they are ready to be used for pizza. We left out two dough balls and placed the remaining doughs in the freezer. You can freeze the dough overnight and then place them in individual freezer bags.

From Vito’s recipe we got 13 180g pizza doughs. If I added just a tad more water, perhaps I would have gotten more. We will have to try the recipe again and maybe use the mixer. Vito Lacopelli pizza dough came out great! So far, we’ve used it to make “mini burger buns,” bagels, and pizzas. This is the perfect pizza dough recipe for Neapolitan style pizza. Give it a try! You won’t hate it! And you won’t need to buy Walmart pizza dough for a few days at least.

Can Deer Eat Pizza?

August 22, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

Now that we know that raccoons love pizza, can deer eat pizza too? The short answer is YES! Every animal that has a taste of pizza will love it and want more. This goes for deer as well. One day, after finishing a hike, we went to grab a pizza pie. As we were driving back home and eating our pizza, a few deers passed the road. We stopped for them, rolled down the window and started taking photos. One brave deer turned around and came straight to the car!

What do you do when a deer pulls by your car window? You feed it a piece of your pizza! Not all deer are this friendly, but this lady was probably being fed by someone on a regular basis. She had no issues coming up to me and slobbering her saliva all over my hand and car window. So yes, deer can eat pizza and they love it! I felt bad that we didn’t have more slices to share. As to which restaurant the pie came from, I have no idea. Since the hike was in Rock Hill, I’m assuming it was a pie from Pizza the Rock.

While deer can eat pizza it doesn’t mean you should buy a pie and go looking for one. Deer, and other wildlife, should eat things that they can easily digest and won’t upset their stomachs. Avoid feeding your deer items they are not used to, especially in the winter. This can shock their digestive system and can cause diarrhea and dehydration. We want our deer to live and thrive, not have the runs.

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Pizza Oven Steak and Potatoes

August 17, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

Do you have a good pizza oven steak and potatoes recipe? We could just keep making pizzas in our Expert Grill charcoal pizza oven, but what fun would that be? Plenty, actually, but sometimes you need a little variety in your life. And, a chef should always experiment and try new things. No harm in trying, right? Before making our steak, we first made salmon and potatoes in the pizza oven. This was a process, but in the end it was delicious.

Today, we decided to make pizza oven steak and potatoes. Who doesn’t love steak and potatoes? Don’t answer that! It’s not every day that we indulge in this meet, but when we do it’s usually a filet. This time we got two rib-eye steaks. The price was better and the steaks were bigger. More meat, more protein, am I right?

Steak and Potatoes in Pizza Oven

For the steak and potatoes recipe I wanted to use the cast iron skillet but did not want the potatoes to get stuck or burn. So, I decided it was a safer bet to cook them separately in a different pan. After the potatoes were cooked almost all the way, I took them out and put the cast iron in the pizza oven. Once the pan was heated up, I placed the seasoned steaks in. The sizzle was perfect and just what I wanted! After two minutes I flipped the steak and waited another two minutes. Then I placed the potatoes back in with the steak and let them heat up in the skillet. Let’s just say this was the most delicious steak and it was hard to share. We have two cats that love steak and they got a tiny piece as well.

You can cook your steak in a pizza oven, straight on the pizza stone. I don’t like to think about the cleanup afterwords and it won’t give me those grill marks that I like. So, I’ll stick to cooking pizza oven steak and potatoes in the cast iron skillet. Next time, I’ll cook the potatoes in the same pan, for added flavor and to speed up the process.

Can Raccoons Eat Pizza?

August 14, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

I have wondered a few times, can raccoons eat pizza? The answer is, of course, yes! Raccoons love pizza as much as the next New Yorker. Italians visiting us must be horrified when they see a giant pie with so much cheese and sauce. On the other hand, we love it and can’t get enough. Our raccoon city and country dwellers love pizza as well. If you’ve been to the city and didn’t see a raccoon looking for pizza, you’re not looking hard enough.

Our late neighbor found a raccoon kit by the street a few years ago and took it home. He raised her and even let her chew on his toothbrush. Then, when she was old enough, he let her out into the wild. Every year since, Rascal, or her family generation, comes to us when it’s time to have her kits. Once the kits are old enough, they emerge from under our deck and start causing havoc. This year they came out at the right time. We just got our charcoal pizza oven, and they enjoy the leftovers. You can say they are also our taste testers.

When we don’t have any leftover pizza slices to give them, they flip and turn everything on the deck until they find a crumb. Okay, that might exaggerate a bit, but they are little rascals. My tomato plant was overturned and is dead now. The pizza oven and our sliding doors have small raccoon hand prints all over them. Shoes for outside have been chewed on and carried across the deck. Yes, there is nothing cuter than watching raccoons eat pizza! Sure, your baby is adorable but watching a bunch of raccoons fight over pizza and munch on them is priceless.

Is Pizza Greek?

July 31, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

When researching pizza, I started asking myself, is pizza Greek? How do you ask? Well, for one, Naples, Italy, was a Greek settlement. That means Naples wouldn’t have been what it is today without the Greeks. Or it might have taken a little longer to get to where they are today.

My second observation is that Greeks were creating flatbread dishes called plakous. This flatbread would come with herbs, cheese, and garlic. It was cheap and fast to make, making it popular amongst the settlers and the city’s poor.

Since Naples is a city by the water, the men were fishermen. According to my research, the wives would prepare a deep bread dish filled with tomato sauce. This sounds like a classing marinara pizza.

By 1700, the city was bustling with Italians, but were there still Greeks there? In 1738 Lucianos started selling their pizza on the streets. By 1830, the family had their first pizza restaurant. Since the family was Italian, does that make the pizza Italian?

In the states, an Italian immigrant changed the way we eat. In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in Little Italy. The love of the flatbread filled with tomato sauce and cheese soon spread over the states, and our passion for pizza expanded.

Is Pizza Greek or Italian or…?

The pizza we consume today in the USA is shaped to what Americans love. Classic Neapolitan pie includes sourdough pizza, cheese, tomato sauce, garlic, and oil. The pies are cooked in a wood-burning stove built from local volcanic rock. The cheese used on classic pies is usually buffalo cheese. This was changed to cow’s mozzarella cheese instead. Woodburning stoves were turned to coal-fired stoves because it was cheaper but produced the same heat and flavor. Today, you might see electric or gas pizza stove ovens in your local pizza stores.

What do you think? Do you think pizza is Greek or Italian? Or maybe it’s neither. Perhaps the Persians and their flatbreads with dates were making the first dessert pizza.

Catskill Pizza Shop: Brio’s Pizzeria

July 29, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

If you’re looking for an excellent Catskill pizza shop, Brio’s Pizzeria is the spot! This restaurant has been feeding its neighborhood since 1973. As you walk in, you see the wood-burning stove in action. Pizza after pizza, dish after dish, cooks for guests in this open brick pizza oven. As for us, we just came for the pizza.

The last time we went hiking in the Catskills, we stopped by Brio’s to grab a pie for the ride home. The pie we chose was covered in sliced tomatoes, basil, cheese, garlic, and oil. Could pizza get any better or be more straightforward? I don’t think so. This is one of their signature pies at Brio’s. It’s simple but so darn delicious!

Three Pies at Brio’s Pizzeria

The second time going to Brio’s Pizzeria, we ordered three pies. This time we got a large fresh tomato, basil, and garlic pie, a personal goal cheese pie, and a mushroom pie. The mushroom pie was loaded with mushrooms on the entire pie and drizzled in truffle oil. This was not my pie but I tried a slice and didn’t care much for it.

The goat cheese personal pie from Brio’s Pizzeria is incredible! I ordered this pie because I love all the veggies they put on it – mushrooms, roasted peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. This pizza was full of flavors and textures and seasoned just right. Maybe the goat cheese made it salty, but it’s perfect and needs nothing else.

While Brio’s Pizzeria has excellent pizza, they also have other incredible food options on the menu. The choices are endless, from salads, burgers, and wraps to Tex-Mex, fajitas, and burritos! You can dine in or eat outside and enjoy the Catskill views and fresh air. We took our pies to go and ate as we drove back home. Some might say that good pizza is hard to find in upstate NY but Brio’s pizza will prove them wrong! Just make sure you’re there at noon, when they start making pizza!

Brio’s Pizzeria & Restaurant
68 Main St
Phoenicia, NY 12464

HOURS

Open Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Monday-Thursday 9am-10pm

Friday 9am-10:30pm

Saturday 8am-10:30pm

Sunday 8am-10pm

Healthy Pizza Dough Options

July 27, 2022 Published by Only Pizza Fans

Some might say pizza’s healthy and has all the essentials we need. Others will argue that pizza has too many carbs and that carbs are bad that turn into sugar. Carbs can spike our blood pressure and diabetes and cause other health concerns. Some might say that cheese is terrible and makes you fat, but it’s proven that it doesn’t. The issue is with carbs and how to reduce them in your pizza.

Healthy Pizza

Whether you want to cut down on your carbs intake or want to lose weight, there are other healthy pizza dough alternatives that you’ll love. These include using:

Cauliflower pizza dough
Zucchini crust
Broccoli pizza crust
Protein crust
Pumpkin zucchini crust

These are just a few of the different keto-friendly, low-carb cust options. If you want to eat pizza but not feel guilty about it, choose one of the above products. They can help you enjoy pizza in a new way and can help you make other health-conscience decisions.

You can also make healthy pizza by adding fresh tomatoes instead of canned pizza sauce. Another option is to add more vegetables to your toppings. Peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini are some of the low-carb veggie pizza toppings. You can also use healthier pizza sauce options, such as white keto sauce.

Whatever you do, there is no need to give up eating pizza! Instead, get your pizza oven and start experimenting. Make healthy pizza dough options your mission in life at least once a month.