Gourmet

This recipe involves tempering, in which the chocolate is melted — and if necessary, cooled — to a temperature of just below body heat. Tempering chocolate helps to ensure that it will be glossy and stay firm at room temperature.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 30 min

A creamy blend of ripe avocados, cucumbers, yogurt, lime juice—and a bit of jalapeño—make this soup bright, spicy, and satisfying. Have we mentioned it only takes ten minutes?

Franklin serves this dish like a green salad, but it's also

This recipe is an accompaniment for Maple Walnut Bûche de Nöel . Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 9 1/2 hr (includes cooling and chilling)

We strongly recommend using light-colored metal (including nonstick) shallow baking pans (1 large or 2 small) for this recipe. When we used dark baking pans, the potatoes blackened before they were completely cooked through.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

We used smoked bocconcini (small mozzarella balls) for this recipe, but you may substitute unsmoked bocconcini or smoked or unsmoked regular mozzarella, cut into slices and quartered.

Candida Sportiello writes: "As owner and chef of Il Giardino restaurant, on the tiny island of Ventotene off the coast of Naples, I've been cooking professionally for twenty-five years — but I've been cooking for pleasure for a good fifty years. As is the Italian way, most of my favorite recipes were handed down from my mother and grandmother, so they date from the early 1900s." "I love having so many amazing ingredients at my fingertips on Ventotene: fish, lentils, wild asparagus, mushrooms, fava beans, and artichokes. They make it easy to produce home-style cooking at its best."

We liked this particular recipe with Lindt or Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, which is around 50 percent cocoa solids. We tested the ganache with chocolate containing a higher percentage, and found the flavor too intense and the consistency less velvety. Active time: 1 3/4 hr Start to finish: 5 hr

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 hr

English Christmas "pudding" is really a dense, moist spiced cake. This gingerbread version is flavored with orange marmalade and topped with a traditional hard sauce — butter and sugar mixed with brandy.

If most of the coconut sauces you've encountered have been heavy and cloying, this one — light and frothy, with delicate flavor — will be a delicious surprise. It would also be perfect for spicing up poached skinless boneless chicken. This recipe is an accompaniment for Pistachio Sea Bass with Crab Salad and Coconut Sauce .