What’s the phrase…A day late and a dollar short?  I’ve found myself a dollar short quite often, but today I find myself a day late.  Saturday came and went without the posting of my weekly mystery ingredient.  I’ve had such a good time with these food adventures. It’s been fun tasting things I’ve never tried and creating new dishes.

This weekend, however, our son, Josh, came for a visit, and for that reason the mystery blog makes it’s appearance on Sunday…a day late.

Yesterday, Corinne, Josh and I went to the local farmer’s market.  It’s one of my favorite Saturday things to do.  I love the beauty of all the homegrown fruits and veggies and the wonderful aromas from baked breads, pies and homemade cookies.

As we walked from vendor to vendor I noticed something I’d never seen at our market before…squash blossoms!  The farmer who raised them left the baby squash attached to the blossoms.  They were absolutely beautiful and so they came home with us, along with zebra tomatoes, minion cookies and a mini pecan pie.

Josh loves cooking as much as his mom, so I had the privilege of preparing the blossoms with his expertise.  Together we prepared baked potatoes, snow crab legs, New York strip steak and corn on the cob.  Most were prepared on the Weber grill save for the potatoes and blossoms.

So…first things first, we blanched our squash blossoms in boiling water just until they wilted, probably 30 -45 seconds.

Next our blossoms enjoyed an ice bath and a quick drain on a bed of paper towels.  Blanching and icing helps blooms to be more pliable.  Remove stamen before stuffing blossoms.  The stamen can be bitter and with it removed it gives more room for the cheese.

Above, Josh, is stuffing the blossoms with Monterrey Jack and Colby cheese.  Most of the recipes I viewed online recommended goat cheese, but I didn’t have that in the fridge.

The Colby and Monterrey cheese tasted and worked great.

Stuff the cheese within the blossoms and fold the petals all around to create a nice little pocket.

Above is a view of our blossoms fully stuffed.

Our beautiful plate of stuffed blossoms go into the fridge for about 20-30 minutes so they’ll be firmly set and easier to handle when battered and fried.

Take out stuffed blossoms from fridge and lightly dust each side with flour.  This will help the batter adhere to the blossoms better.

Next I made a batter of Guinness, Masarepa, (pre-cooked ground corn flour by Goya found in the Latin aisle of grocery store.) self rising flour, salt and fresh ground pepper and mixed it to the consistency of pancake batter.  We dipped each blossom into our batter and then dropped into a cast iron frying pan of hot vegetable oil.

Fry each side to a golden brown.

Drain squash blossoms on paper towels.  We cut the lemons in half preparing them for our snow crabs legs.

Above our finished plate of New York Strip Steak, Snow Crab Legs, Corn, Baked Potato, and Squash Blossoms.  I fell in love with the blossoms, so I’ve got my fingers crossed there will be more at the farmer’s market next week.  Even Corinne liked them and she’s not fond of squash.

Good food, good beer and great conversations with the people you love most in the world…no better memories than these!

I truly hope you get a chance to try Squash Blossoms.  They are delicious.