My parents came for lunch yesterday, and I thought I'd make something kind of light and summery and from the garden to go with the last of the pulled pork and shredded chicken from Friday and a fruit salad of watermelon, blueberries and kiwi.
I still had some homemade goat cheese, and we had a freshly-picked zucchini, and some squash blossoms. We also had home-grown garlic and oregano. Add a bit of leftover marinara sauce, some flour, egg, and bread crumbs, and ta-da! Stuffed squash blossoms.
So first I went outside to see how many blossoms I could harvest. There were only seven. The large three are from the zucchini plant, and the smaller ones are from the rogue pumpkin plant that's growing along our front walk. I rinsed them out and went back outside to pick the oregano.
I cut the zucchini into small pieces and sauteed them with two cloves of minced garlic, a bit of butter, a bit of salt, and the leaves from a few sprigs of oregano. I cooked them til they were starting to brown and had given up much of their liquid.
I set the zucchini mixture aside to cool for a few minutes before combining it with the plain goat cheese. A bit more salt, and it was ready to go.
Next, I put some of the cheese mixture in the center of each blossom (it's easier to work with the blossoms if you just slit them open. I learned this the hard way after lots of frustration last summer!)
And then I wrapped the petals around the cheese and set the finished blossom aside til all were finished. Then I put them in the freezer to firm up while I heated some oil and put together the coating layers.
I've got flour, mixed with some salt and pepper...an egg and some water whisked together, and about 3 parts Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) to one part flour.
When the oil was around 360 degrees F, I took the blossoms out of the freezer, and rolled them, one at a time, in the flour, then the egg, and then the panko mixtures.
Then I put the three largest blossoms in the hot oil and covered the pan with a splatter guard so I wouldn't have lovely little grease spots all over my face.
After a couple of minutes, I took a peek...
Nice and golden brown on the underside, by the looks of things. I took some tongs and gently turned the stuffed blossoms over to finish cooking.
A couple more minutes, and they were done. I set them on paper towels while I cooked up the remaining blossoms, and then lunch was served. We had a little bit of marinara sauce left over from when DC Rainmaker and The Girl were carbing up before the triathlon, (or whatever the correct term is), so I thinned it a bit with water and it was just right as a little dip for the blossoms.
To my surprise, Alex even liked them. He doesn't like soft cheeses, but he liked these. Go figure!
The best part of this little concoction was that all the main components were grown in our back yard - the zucchini and blossoms, the garlic, and the oregano. And I made the cheese. Cool, huh?
