Do the words five ingredients and gourmet dessert go together? Throw in the word fast and you have this gorgeous strawberry tart.

Your guests will rave (in a good way).

You may be unfamiliar with mascarpone cheese, the main ingredient in this tart. Mascarpone is a mild-flavored soft double or triple cream cheese that originated in the Lombardy region of Italy. It is similar to cream cheese or a thick French creme fraiche. You may need to sit down before reading the next line, though. Mascarpone has a fat content that ranges from sixty to seventy-five percent. There are six grams of fat in a single tablespoon of the cheese. Fortunately a small slice of this tart is very satisfying!

Typically, mascarpone is a dessert ingredient. It is a chief ingredient in Italy’s decadent tiramisu dessert, for example, but it also is used in savory dishes like pastas. You can buy mascarpone in the dairy section of markets like Trader Joe’s.

There are links at the bottom of this post to the original recipe from the How Sweet Eats blog, to a tutorial for carving the roses (it’s a cinch!), and to a do-it-yourself recipe for making mascarpone at home if you want to give that a try.

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Here is a link to a tutorial on carving the strawberry roses: Carving Strawberry Roses

Here is the link to the original recipe on the How Sweet Eats blog: Five Ingredient Strawberry Tart

Here is a link to a recipe to make your own mascarpone that appears on the Epicurious site: Do-it-yourself mascarpone from Epicurious

Certain things in American life are understood. You don’t mess with Old Glory, for example, or Texas. You don’t cut off a phalanx of Hells Angels on PCH. You don’t open wrapped candy during a performance at The South Coast Repertory Theatre. You argue with an English grammarian at your own peril. And, as it turns out, you don’t ever mess with the recipe for guacamole.

The New York Times found that out the hard way when they published a recipe for guacamole with peas on Twitter back in 2015.

You read that right. Guacamole. With. Peas.

No, really.

People from around the world waded in on that one. Even President Obama got involved. In the end, the editor of the NY Times Food Page, Sam Sifton, survived the pea guacamole brouhaha and continues to defend the recipe to this day. Sifton posted this entertaining reply to his tormentors:

Sam Sifton Replies to “Guacamolegate”

So, here is my personal contribution to the guacamole challenge. This week’s recipe is for a traditional guacamole, one that was made famous by Chef Josefina Howard at the Rosa Mexicano Restaurant in Manhattan. The recipe was published in a New York Times review of Howard’s cookbook, Rosa Mexicano. (Times food writer Florence Fabricant also reviewed Diana Kennedy’s My Mexico cookbook in the same article.)

To my taste, Howard’s guacamole is everything a guacamole should be–bright clean flavors, chunks of just-ripe avocado, the bite of fresh chile pepper and red onion pounded into paste in your authentic molcajete (or just in a boring old bowl).

Stay tuned, though. Next week, I’ll give the pea guacamole a try and post the results (and recipe) here. I’ll tell you what I think and you can give the two recipes your own taste test.

As I see it, either way, I’m a big winner. Two weeks. Two big bowls of guacamole. Life is good.

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Here is the link to the NY Times guacamole recipe used in this post:

Rosa Mexicano Restaurant Recipe for Guacamole

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What’s not to love about broccoli?

First, it is not kale.  (I rest my case.)

Second…no wait! Gimme a moment. I can think of something. Really.

Love it or hate it, nobody, it seems, takes a neutral position about broccoli. In fact, there are some very interesting theories why some people hate broccoli. It is not their fault. Here is an interesting link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/evolution/Why-we-hate-broccoli.html

Nutrition scientists don’t mince words about broccoli’s nutritional benefits either . Broccoli, they remind us, is high in fiber, vitamins C and K, iron, and potassium and has more protein than most other vegetables. On top of that, a cup of broccoli has 31 calories. Wow!

So, the next time you have an opportunity to grab a fresh bunch of broccoli, why not make  this wonderful rich soup?

This soup is touted on any number of sites as a “take” on Panera Restaurant’s broccoli cheese soup served in a bread bowl. That bread bowl concept sounds pretty good to me, but, absent a boule of bread appropriate for the occasion, I decided to serve this beautiful soup in a traditional bowl.

This soup is an adaptation of a recipe from an inspired blog named Averie Cooks. The link to the original recipe appears at the end of this post.

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Here is the link to the original recipe:

https://www.averiecooks.com/2015/01/best-broccoli-cheese-soup-better-panera-copycat.html