Fried Zucchini Blossoms, or I Don't Have A Black Thumb Anymore!

I have been talking a little about my Aerogardens and how I hope they cure me of my notorious Black Thumb.  I just have never been able to keep plants, indoors our outdoors, alive for very long.  When I first got my Aerogardens, I used one of them for planting starter seedlings that I then transplanted to larger planters.  They were indoors for a while but now they spend most of their time outside on the stoop.

And guess what?!  They aren't dead!  A couple of the plants that I transplanted didn't make it, but most of them are doing fine!  I have even started to get lovely little blossoms on them, and a few of them are turning into actual little veggies.  Fantastic!  Nobody is more surprised than I am. 

I planted a couple of types of zucchini plants in my planters, and that's in part because I purposely wanted to get the blossoms to eat.  I've been seeing all kinds of things about zucchini blossoms on various cooking shows and thought it sounded like a great idea to cook with them.  I saw yesterday that I had a few usable zucchini flowers so I planned to make them into a dinner tonite.

Zucchini blossoms are the bright greenish-yellow flowers which bloom on the zucchini plant; the zucchini sortof sticks out of the back of the flower.  They are shaped a bit like a bulb, which make them a natural shape to stuff but also to hide fun things like bees or spiders - not usually, but once in a while, so keep your eye out.  Carefully open it by peeling the petals apart and gently clean it out.  Gently cut or pull out the stamen.  Wipe off any dirt.  You can rinse them under water very carefully if you want but it isn't necessary.  You want to handle them very delicately.

As a filling, I used a basic ricotta filling - ricotta, egg, parmesan, salt, pepper. But, instead of a basic ricotta filling, you could always add something else - other cheeses, bacon, ham, red pepper, spinach, anything you might think of putting in ricotta for some other dish.  Or, you could use blue cheese, goat cheese, or some other creamy cheese instead of ricotta.  Tonite, I just used ricotta.

I found out that stuffing them is not super easy.  They are very very delicate.  The trick is to hold the flower in your palm to support it while one petal is folded down, and fill the "cup" of the flower by using a bottom-to-top motion with your spoon, dropping the ricotta in gently.  Then close the petal over the filling and press a little.  If a little cheese comes out it's fine; in fact, it will.  It's fine.

Then just dip the whole thing in beaten egg and breadcrumbs; or in batter, whatever you prefer.  Fry in shallow oil until golden brown, handling them, as always, very gently.  I served them with a drizzle of a glaze I made out of equal parts honey and that jalapeno jelly I got at the farmer's market a couple weeks ago.  It was yummy.  We also had pesto pasta and caesar salad.  A yummy summer night's meal.

I'm so glad I kept my zucchini plants alive long enough to cook something from them!  As a bonus, I also picked a tiny baby zucchini - I mean it, it's like, two inches long and so so cute - that I am going to fry up when we have pakoras as a snack later tonite.  So that's two things I grew!  Yay me!

Happy eating!