Summer's Best flower

One of summer's most special and beautiful edible flower is the squash blossoms, with  more than 20 varieties with different shapes and colors to choose from. We can enjoy this delicacy raw, pickled, sauteed, deep fryed or however we prefer it.

This warm season specialty can be easily found at farmer's markets, but if you have your own garden don't be afraid to pick them for your enjoyment. Just keep in mind there both  female and male squash blossoms and only the females turn into a squash. How to tell the difference? Females grow in the center of the future squash and male ones are the numerous flowers that grow from long stems.

When preparing them to be consumed, they are two important steps to follow:

- carefully check for any insects inside 

and

- with the help of tweezers remove pistil off the center of the flower

All this information is going to be very useful for the delicious treat I have for you today, as I just got a freshly picked batch of squash blossoms from my Dad's farm.

We are going to be stuffing them with ...wait for it....goat cheese! But not only that, we are also going to be making a delicious and very Hispanic escabeche to give it more flavor and color.

Ingredients:

- squash blossoms

- goat cheese

- chives and epazote finely chopped

- hot chili pepper, chopped

-salt and pepper

For the escabeche you will need:

- olive oil

- white onion, julienned

- cubanelle pepper, julienned

- tomatoes, cubed medium size

- garlic glove, minced

- capers

-salt and pepper

With a damp towel clean the squash blossoms, making sure to check for bugs and carefully taking the pistil out and set  the blossoms aside.

In a bowl combine the goat cheese, chives, epazote. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.

Carefully fill the squash blossoms and if needed secure with a wooden skewer. Save for later.

Next, we are going to make the escabeche. In a hot saute pan pour olive oil and saute onions, then add garlic and cubanelle pepper and let cook for a minute. Add the tomatoes and let cook. Remember to season with salt and pepper (you can even add a drizzle of lime juice to kick it up notch). Before removing from the heat add the capers.

Right before serving saute the already stuffed blossoms.  Serve over  the escabeche and surprise your guess with this treat.

You can serve it as an appetizer or as a side dish to a meal.

** I kept the recipe measurement free so you can adapt it to your liking!

Enjoy,

'till next time

Fran