Risotto of the Month

When we were on our honeymoon in Santa Barbara, we decided to go on a wine tasting tour one day. We had done a few wine tastings last year in Bolzano, but they were in German, so we were excited to be able to understand what we were learning.

Here's California versus Italy, just for fun:

Santa Barbara

Bolzano

Anyway, at one of the wineries, we stumbled across a cookbook that had only risotto recipes, which we decided to buy – especially in case we didn’t have an oven this year…but we do!

I make risotto quite a bit here, but I tend to stick to the old favorites: lemon risotto, risotto with mushrooms and peas, roasted cauliflower risotto….those are on pretty heavy rotation from September to April. When I started looking through our new cookbook, I announced to Ryan that I was going to try every single recipe in the book this year, to which he replied, “Why don’t you just do one a month?”

And so the Risotto of the Month was created. I got September done just in time, too - I decided to do Risotto with Zucchini Blossoms last night because:

a) I've never cooked with zucchini blossoms before and the whole point of doing this is to try something new

b) They are still available even though they aren't really in season anymore....goodbye summer

I can't find the recipe online because it's only in the book, but if anyone wants it, I would be happy to share....it was delicious, although at this point, I would recommend waiting until next summer to make it, when the zucchini blossoms are in full bloom.

And here are my two happy sous chefs: