Asparagus Kombucha Risotto

Asparagus Kombucha Risotto

When I was brainstorming ideas for what to cook with kombucha, I did a quick google search for recipes with champagne in them. To my palate, champagne, sour beers, and kombucha all have a similar thing going on and if one works in a recipe, the others should too. I saw a lot of champagne risottos which struck me as a little odd because with a small amount of champagne in a risotto you really aren’t going to taste it. Sounds like a waste of champagne! I decided to adapt the champagne risotto idea for kombucha, but use some ingredients that would enhance the tea flavor profile, and use a nice amount of it so that you could really taste it in the final dish.

Cauliflower Summer Roll

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Fresh Rolls

I had some co-workers over for a quick bite on the way out to a “Team Building Event” (bar crawl). Had to stick to veggies because one is vegetarian, but I wanted to make something light anyways. I needed it to be really delicious because these people cook my recipes at Cafe Burrito every day and I wanted to show them that I was good at cooking other types of food too. I decided on making a simple cauliflower and chickpea curry and rolling it into some fresh rolls. I made a quick yogurt raita as a dipping sauce and the rolls were a big success.

Chicken Tikka Egg Rolls

Chicken Tikka Egg Rolls

Charred yogurt marinated chicken tikka wrapped in an egg roll with onion and hot peppers and served with cilantro mayo.

Persian Burrito

Persian Chicken Burritos

You guys know I love to make twists on the burrito from all over the world. There are even some good versions in Stuffed! The key to making this work is not just slapping a bunch of exotic ingredients into a tortilla, you really have to take the time to replace all of the burrito staples like rice, beans, meat, and salsa. This week Mandi and I made an incredibly tasty Persian take on the burrito. For the rice, we used a sour cherry rice complete with the crispy bits Persian rice is famous for. In place of beans, we used lentils. The meat was a classic marinaded chicken, salsa was a Persian tomato-cucumber salad, and for sour cream, we made a yogurt sauce.

Indian Nachos

Papadum Nachos with Tandoori Chicken

When you go to a mexican restaurant, they bring you free chips and salsa to enjoy. When you go to an Indian restaurant, they bring you free papadum with chutney to enjoy. This similarity got me thinking, why not make some loaded nachos with all Indian ingredients instead of Mexican. So that’s what I did!

Beet Tzatziki

Beet Tzatziki


Sofra in Cambridge has been my go-to lunch spot for about 6 months now. I work nearby and love everything about this place. Most of the time I am in a hurry so I grab one of their stuffed flatbreads to go, but when I have a minute to stop and really enjoy my lunch, I like to go inside and relax with some crick-crack crackers and selections from the Mezze Bar. The only problem is that the first thing I tried from the Mezze Bar was so amazing, that I can’t seem to try any of the other choices! Their beet tzatziki is so appealing to all the senses that my brain refuses to let me order anything else.

I had a craving for this tzatziki on a non-work day, and we all know the last thing you want to do on a day off is to go anywhere near work, so I decided to make some at home. I switched it up a bit, either because I was in the mood for smoother tzatziki, or because I was too lazy to shred the beets and just felt like throwing the whole mess into the blender.

Frozen Yogurt

Frozen Yogurt

frozen yogurt from super scratch with homemade yogurt.