Recipe of the Week

You've waited all year for these ephemeral flowers to bloom, then turn into squash. 

Here's how to enjoy these lovely june blossoms.

Breaded and Stuffed Squash Blossoms

For the Breading

1 part flour

1 part bread crumbs, or we love to use nutritional yeast

1 tbsp herbs mixed with salt and red pepper

1 egg (beaten and set aside for frying)

For the Filling

Use any kind of soft cheese.  We alternate between a Chevre or Blue cheese

You can also add herbs to the filling.

The Process:

Prepare the breading and put 1/4 of it on a shallow plate.  Have the remaining nearby for refill. Keep your stems intact and open the blossoms gently checking for bees.

Stuff your blossoms with the filling and close the petals shut around it. 

Heat your frying pan, using a high heat index oil like coconut oil or grapeseed oil (canola can work too).  Dip your blossoms in the egg and then roll it in the flour mixture.

Holding onto the stem, place the blossom into the hot oil and fry until light golden brown.

Enjoy.

Squash Blossoms!

Nothing says spring quite like a bag of fresh squash blossoms. When you can get your hands on beauties like these, try to eat them as close as possible to the day that they are harvested, as they wilt rather quickly.

For a long time I wondered about squash blossoms - namely why you would pick them when they would otherwise turn into zucchini. Turns out that each squash plant has both male and female flowers. You can tell the difference between the two because the male has a stamen, whereas the female has a bulge at the base of the flower which is the nascent fruit. As long as you leave enough males to do the pollinating, you can eat the rest!

You can eat all of the blossom, though the stamen is extremely bitter, and so I've always removed it. Squash blossoms are nice chopped over salads, on top of frittatas, or stuffed with ricotta and fried. John claims to like his battered with nutritional yeast, but for me, tempura batter is the way to go.

Happy experimenting, and happy spring!

- Christiana Thomas

Pizza

One of my favorite restaurants anywhere is Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles. It is so much fun to be there and all of the food is incredible. Really, with Nancy Silverton, Mario Battali, and Matt Molina, how could a pizza place in Hollywood go awry? They are renown for squash blossom pizza. So much so that Saveur offered a squash blossom pizza on the cover of it's Los Angeles edition this year. I made their recipe, exactly as published, and we LOVED it. (full disclosure: Michael would be perfectly happy if we ate pizza 365 days a year). My photograph, however, left quite a bit to be desired. You'll receive squash blossoms in your share this spring and can purchase burrata cheese from Whole Foods or at other specialty food stores. At Mozza, they use the Gioia brand. This is worth spending some energy to track down. Burrata is fresh mozzarela stuffed with cream and, for me personally, it completely redefined what fresh cheese could be.

I also tried a chard version with some of the additional dough from the recipe, which, by the way, kept perfectly in our refrigerator for three days wrapped in plastic. Since I don't have a slick magazine photo to which I can direct you, I've included mine.

1/4 dough from Saveur Recipe

1 T extra virgin olive oil

1 stem green garlic (peeled, finely sliced light and green parts only)

1 leek (finely sliced light and green parts only)

1 bunch baby chard leaves with stems

Salt and red pepper flakes

1 egg

freshly grated parmasean reggiano

Prepare pizza dough as directed by Saveur. From my experience, the use of a pizza stone, even a very inexpensive one, and the practice of heating it for an hour at 500 degrees is critical to the success of the finished product. Place the prepared dough on the heated stone and bake for 5 minutes at 500 degrees. In the meantime, saute green garlic, leeks and chard in olive oil. Season with salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Arrange the contents of the saute pan on the baking crust, crack the egg over the top, sprinkle with parmasean cheese and bake for five additional minutes. You'll want additional parmasean to garnish the cooked pie and a chiffonade of soft herbs would not be out of place. Having tried this, I advise making a little well in the center of the greens to cradle the egg while it bakes. You can see that mine ran dangerously close to the edge.

- Jet Doye