Going Roman with MissKnitter and Fuzzband

New Haven has farmers' markets. The philosophy is local, organic, community, connecting, etc. I do like the idea, but the practical side leaves something to be desired... It is sort of a local farmers bring their products to sell to the urbanized trendy. As the Fuzzband and I discussed, there is a certain lack of congruence in the  sellers and the customers. Trying to make a livelihood and ostentatious consumption meet. There is also something about being yelled at twice in the first ten minutes at the market that tends to put me off... But whatever. We went last Saturday to check out the beets, but ended up buyin rhubarb and zucchini flowers. Zucchini flowers! Fiori di zucca! Yay! I loved these stuffed with ricotta and fish when I lived in Rome. Yummy! So we bought ten (for $2) to try to recreate my culinary memories from 2000-2001. Very exciting!

Yesterday evening the Fuzzband and I went over to my friend MissKnitter's place, so I brought the zucchini flowers and a filling I concocted from memory, and a couple of recipes from the internets. The Fuzzband flipped a coin, and so we did baked instead of fried fiori di zucca.

Preheat oven to 350-400 F (175-200 C)

2/3-1 cup ricotta
a few good spoonfulls of parmesan
parsley
1 egg yolk
1 hand sized fillet of fish baked and flaked
salt
pepper
zucchini flowers

Mix all the ingredients for the filling. It can be refrigerated for a while prior to filling. Pry the flowers open, and fill with a few teaspoons of the filling. Fold the petals around the filling and place on a lightly greased or baking paper clad baking sheet in a vague hope that the filling will not explode the petals open, spraying your friend's oven... Bake for ca 10-15 minutes until the filling is hot and the flowers are even more golden than they were prior to insertion into oven.

I have not figured out how to rotate images from my smartphone in a way that maintains the selected rotation in the blog. Irritating. 

We also discovered that once they have been baked and cooled down, they could be reheated! Good to know for potential party contributions.

MissKnitter made a delicious linguine and clam sauce dish for the main course. The recipe was sort of following a recipe from the internets. It turned out ridiculously good! 

MissKnitter also had a salad based on self-construction. As I am allergic to a lot of salad stuff, she gave us greens, chopped green bell peppers, chopped jalapenos, blueberries, blackberries, olives, and a vinaigrette to freely mix and match. Oh, and for appetizers she had antipasti and olives. Dessert was raspberry sherbet the Fuzzband picked up when he ran to the store to pick up some portobellos. Delicious meal all around! And of course the relaxed company was a big part of it all. As visiting guest stars we had Honey Dog and the cat Whiskey. Scampi the cat was busy guarding MissKnitter's yarn stash in the office, but we paid our respects to her anyway. 

Oh, and we bought beets elsewhere: more on those another time...