The Slapdash Cook

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I went to see some friends a couple of weeks ago, and one of the first things we did after arriving was cook. In fact, we made an entire Italian meal from semi-scratch. (In order to make a meal entirely from scratch, you must first create the universe.) J. kept saying he wanted to make something complicated after we saw Julie and Julia, and this night delivered. I am not ambitious enough to repeat the recipes for the homemade pasta and the eggplant-tomato sauce, plus the cookbook we used for those things is at their place anyway. But I am more than happy to repeat the recipe for the stuffed zucchini blossoms we had along with the pasta.

Among the goodies my friends got at their local farmer’s market was a bag of zucchini flowers. One of these friends, M., has two genuine Sicilian parents (who now live in the States). So not only did they think of stuffing the blossoms Italian-style, but M.’s mother questioned us closely about the quality, price and freshness of the blossoms. Then we stuffed them according to what I seem to remember is her recipe. A quick Google search suggests that this is not a popular recipe, since I can’t find a recipe that’s very similar. But it was still gooooood. Unlike most of the stuffed squash blossoms you’ll find recipes for online, these were baked rather than deep-fried. In fact, I was told that you can deep-fry them if you want, presumably after battering them. I’m not sure whether we baked them instead out of health-consciousness or laziness, but it was delicious anyway.

Mrs. C’s Stuffed Zucchini Flowers
This is very, very slapdash, partly because I don’t remember it perfectly and partly because, I think, this is the sort of thing that people just eyeball anyway. We had way more breadcrumb stuffing than we needed, so if you’d rather do this with tomatoes or peppers, I’m sure you could.

20-ish squash blossoms, big enough to stuff, rinsed
1 to 2 balls of fresh (water-packed) mozzarella
1/3 loaf French bread
3 tablespoons fresh parsley
3 cloves garlic (you could use less, but why?)
Parmesan to taste — I am told we used 2-3 tablespoons
1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more to taste
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 (I think — but it’s been my experience that you can fudge temperatures a little with this kind of recipe anyway). Put everything except the first two ingredients in a food processor. Process until things are crumby, not chunky. Feel with your (hopefully clean) hands and add water and olive oil until it clumps slightly when pinched.

2. Gather your other ingredients.

Cut the mozzarella into skinny chunks roughly the length of the flowers. You want to leave some room for the breadcrumb filling too.

3. Stuffing time! This is not as perilous as you might think. The flowers don’t tear that easily, plus the petals do not seem to be discrete units, which means you can open the flower gently with your fingers, add some filling and close it up again. We put the mozzarella piece in first, then used tiny spoons to fill in the breadcrumb stuffing around it. Then you close up the flowers and add them to a baking pan. I do not believe we bothered greasing it.

4. When everything is stuffed, add a generous glug of olive oil over the top, then stick in the oven for 10 minutes.

5. Serve immediately. Disappears immediately. The fried ones might be nice with a sauce, but these were good as they were.

Thanks to M. and L. for a fabulous weekend and for letting me share this.