I am thrilled to introduce you to my last guest poster, my sweet friend, Roz, of La Bella Vita. Roz has a gorgeous blog which shares her passion for food, gardening and travel…often focusing on the sensational food from her Italian heritage. We initially met via Foodbuzz, and posted comments on each others blogs. It wasn’t long before I had an inkling that I might actually know Roz…despite her living in the Carolinas, and me in the Midwest. Read on to see how serendipity reconnected us. Besides her exceptional blog, you can find Roz on Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook.
What an honor to be asked by my good friend, Lizzy, to write a guest post for this awesome blog! Not only because she’s got a great food blog, but also because Lizzy is a friend of my sister Kelly since childhood. Lizzy and Kelly met in Kindergarten in Ames, Iowa, grew up a few blocks from each other, and even went to the same church together. Their friendship continued through high school, college years at the University of Iowa, and beyond to this day! It was totally bizzare when Lizzy and I found each other’s blog and realized who we were! For this guest post, I thought it would be cool to share some photos of Lizzy and my sister. Liz was sweet enough to send me old photos that she had digitized (I’ve got to do that with my old photos too!), as well as a few recent photos of these two very thin ladies!
As seniors in high school, Halloween Night…Kelly is
the clown and I’m Raggedy Andy~
Kelly and me at our last high school reunion~
And now, it’s time chat about the recipe that I prepared for Mother’s Day: Balsamic Strawberry Crostini! My daughter gave me a gift of some outrageously rich and decadent imported strawberries from Italy and immediately my mind thought of using them for a sweet dessert crostini! Italian mascarpone cheese is sweetened with some local honey and spread on top of toasted slices of Italian bread sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. For the topping, I added fresh strawberries to the Italian strawberries in syrup and added some high quality balsamic vinegar. Perfecto!
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Balsamic Strawberry Crostini
Italian bread, sliced diagonally
butter
cinnamon
sugar
8 oz. mascarpone cheese, room temperature
2 Tbsp. local honey
fresh strawberries
1 cup Frogole imported Italian strawberries in syrup
balsamic vinegar
cinnamon-sugar
Slice bread diagonally.
Spread butter on both sides of bread.
Sprinkle with mixture of sugar and cinnamon (about 1 cup sugar to 2 tsp. cinnamon to start).
Broil for a few minutes on each side; do not burn.
Set aside.
Blend local honey with mascarpone cheese.
Spread a big dollop on each slice of bread
Cut up strawberries.
Blend with imported Italian Fragole strawberries in syrup.
Sprinkle with a little bit of cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Blend in 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar (add more to your taste preference).
Top each cheese-covered crostini with the strawberry mixture.
Garnish with mint, basil, and fresh whole strawberries.
Grazie tutto to Lizzy for the privilege of being a guest poster,
Roz from ‘la bella vita’
Thank you so much, Roz, and ALL my marvelous pinch hitters over the last two weeks. I’ll be back on Monday! xoxo
Thank you so much, Roz, and ALL my marvelous pinch hitters over the last two weeks. I’ll be back on Monday! xoxo
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