Cooking With Mom! Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Hello dear readers, and happy end of August!

I have mixed feelings about the month- while it is the month of Leo, and thus, my birthday, it is also the month that seems to herald the end of summer, and I will admit that the waning days of summer do always make me a bit melancholy. So, it's with happiness that I write about a cooking experiment that I embarked upon earlier in the summer with my cooking idol- my mom!


I went up to the MA homestead and got to partake of my moms awesome garden. She was just experiencing the beginnings of what would be a bumper crop of zucchini. The evidence of this was an abundance of zucchini blossoms, which we decided we wanted to do something fun with, and soooooooo, stuffed squash blossoms it was!



We went online and looked up different recipes for stuffing for squash blossoms on epicurious. We liked this one: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Squash-Blossoms-Stuffed-with-Ricotta-354966 for the stuffing, which we adapted a little bit, using (fresh from the garden!) basil instead of mint, adding a little dried oregano.


1 cup whole-milk ricotta
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup finely chopped basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

We combined the above ingredients and then stuffed each squash blossom with enough filling to fill the wider base of the blossom. This stuffing amount was anywhere from 1 to 2 teaspoons.

As you can see we had a lot of fun stuffing and posing our collected squash blossoms.



I always love cooking with my mom. It doesn't happen as frequently as either of us would like, but when we get to collect stuff from the garden, like basil for ricotta stuffing and pesto, or we go to the grocery store and talk about what we feel inspired to make, we always have a blast. I do enjoy cooking all the time, but cooking with someone else (especially mom!) is always fun.

We made the batter for frying, pretty much as called for, combining the below ingredients:
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
3/4 cup chilled club soda
About 3 cups vegetable oil for frying
Although I must admit, the club soda probably probably wasn't adequately chilled.




We even made (with a few modifications) the spicy tomato sauce included in the Epicurious recipe, as you can see from the photos, but I don't think either of us would recommend that sauce as an accompaniment to the blossoms, it was a nice sauce, but it overpowered the delicate flavor of the squash blossoms. And yes, I called something fried "delicate"



So we fried the battered squash blossoms in the heated vegetable oil (~375 degrees) for 1-2 minutes, a few at a time in the pot, and then transfered the blossoms to paper towels on a plate in order to allow them to drain.




They were delicious, beautiful, and really fun to make. Thanks Mom!