I’ve eaten flowers before, usually as an accent or decoration on a salad or with sushi.  I’ve also seen them at markets and not known what to do with them.  A little bit of foodie edutainment, however, gave me the insight on a very easy and tasty dish featuring flowers.

Picking Out the Petals

Giada De Laurentiis, the Italian cuisine queen Food Network, cooked these tasty fried flowers on an episode of Giada at Home.  You can find the recipe here.  I wasn’t immediately moved to start cooking with zucchini blossoms after seeing the show, but the idea of them stayed with me for a while.  During a recent visit to the farmer’s market, Nicole and I saw them and got excited.  We were happy to know a recipie for flowers and eagerly bought bunch.  The blossoms were wispy, whimsical looking things without much scent and tasting of zucchini (no surprise there!).

 

Changing Things Up A Bit  

I checked out Giada’s recipe and was kind of put off by the amounts called for.  Just one ounce of cream cheese?  Two ouncse of goat cheese? Two TEASPONS of heavy cream!?  I enjoy cooking, and can be adventurous and creative, but I couldn’t see myself buying what was needed for this receipe and using the leftovers in a fashion timely enough to make the purchase worth it.  So I punted.

At home, I already had some flour based whole wheat pancake mix; I used that in place of the flour.  I picked up some Borsin garlic and fine herb cheese (one of my fave cheeses!) to use in place of the goat and cream cheeses.  Instead of the 1 tablespoon (!?) of chopped fresh basil leaves suggested in the recipe, I substituted dried dill weed.  The result was delectable!  The cheese mixture, strongly flavored with the garlic and herb Borsin, was smooth and slightly tangy from the dill.

Getting the cheese mixture into the blossoms required another modification.  Giada suggests spooning the mixture into the blossoms.  Looking at the delicate, flimsy petals, I figured the spoon method wasn’t going to be an easy one.  I opted for the home made pipe bag using a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off the bottom.  The only spoon action I saw was spooning the cheese into the bag!  Squeezing the cheese down to the corner, I was able to easily pipe the cheese into the blossoms before twisting them closed.

The pancake mix was a great modification too.  I used Krusteaz Honey and Whole Wheat which added a pleasant sweetness to the batter.  The result was a crispy, golden brown flowerbud, stuffed with a delicious mix of cheese!