Fried zucchini blossoms

This year, we are successfully growing a few zucchini plants in our Garden Tower. They are giving us a lot of zucchini flowers, and very little zucchinis. Fortunately, we love eating fried zucchini blossoms in our house :)

Before talking about how to cook zucchini blossoms, let's talk a little botany. All squashes (zucchini is a variety of summer squash) have both male and female flowers. Only female flowers are going to fruit and give zucchinis. It is fairly easy to distinguish between male and female flowers: the male has a long skinny stem, while the female arbors a chubbier stem (the ovary that will give a zucchini fruit once pollinated). We harvest only the male flowers (as only the female will give zucchinis), leaving one or two male flowers for pollination).

Now let's talk food!

Ingredients (for 12 fried flowers):

• 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon milk (or beer for a lighter batter)
• 1 egg, beaten
• ~ 10 basil leaves, shredded
• salt and pepper to taste 

• 12 zucchini flowers

Recipe

• Make the batter by mixing all the ingredients, except the zucchini flowers
• Dip the flowers in the batter

• Carefully cook in a pan with 3 tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown (it goes fast!)

• That's it, enjoy!

Gluten-free, dairy-free Rhubarb cupcakes

I eat gluten (as any other French person, I could barely survive without bread!), I eat dairy (Hello cheese!), but, I have among my friends some people who are gluten and dairy intolerant. And they still deserve a good cupcake.
Rhubarb is starting to show up at the Farmer's market and I couldn't resist but bake some rhubarb cupcakes. I used pink rhubarb in the cupcakes batter (which results in pretty pink-hued cupcakes) and green rhubarb (a bit more bitter) for the jam on top of the cupcakes, but you can use the same type of rhubarb in both and still obtain delicious cupcakes.

Ingredients (for 24 cupcakes)

• 2 cups Gluten-Free flour (my favorite is Glutino Gluten-Free Pantry All Purpose Baking Flour) 
• 2 teaspoons Gluten-Free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup Coconut oil
• 2 cups sugar (I like evaporated cane sugar) 
• 1 cup almond milk (or other dairy-free milk of choice)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract 
• 2 cups diced rhubarb

For the frosting, I found some Soyatoo Soy Whip at my local co-op and I have to say that I was surprised by how good it was!


Recipe

1. Pre-heat the oven to 300˚F
2. In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients and set aside
3. Beat eggs with coconut oil until frothy
4. Add sugar and beat until homogeous
5. Add milk and vanilla extract
6. Add dry ingredient and keep beating
7. Add diced rhubarb
8. Fill muffin cups with around 1/4 batter
9. Bake for around 20 minutes
10. Let cool completely
11. Top with Soy Whip if desired

For a fancier version, you can add rhubarb jam (easy recipe follow) on top of the Soy Whip and sprinkle with a pinch of turbinado sugar


Rhubarb jam recipe 

• 1 cup diced rhubarb
• 1 cup diced apple
• 1/2 cup sugar

In a medium size saucepan, slowly cook the diced rhubarb and apple with the sugar, stirring frequently, until rhubarb and apple broke down. Let it cool. That's it!

Leftover chicken stuffed zucchinis

 I love the end of May / beginning of June, as it's the time of the year where my local Farmer's market starts to carry a good choice of vegetables. Last Saturday, I was happy to find my first round zucchinis of 2015. I knew it was time to make some stuffed zucchinis.In France, traditionally, people make stuffed vegetables with whatever meat leftovers they've got around. We roasted a chicken last week and we didn't eat it all yet, hence this recipe.

Ingredients (for 2 people)

• 2 small round zucchini
• About 2 cups of leftover chicken
• 1 onion (I like the red ones the best)
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 cup fresh basil
•  A pinch of ground cumin
• Salt and pepper to taste

Recipe

1. Cut the top edge of each zucchini 
2. Using a spoon, empty each zucchini, leaving around 1/2 inch of flesh around
3. Cut the zucchini flesh from above, as well as the meat, onion and garlic in small pieces
4. Mix in the basil, cumin, salt and pepper
5. Fill the zucchinis
6. Drizzle with Olive oil
7. Bake at 400˚F / 200˚C for 45 minutes
8. Enjoy!

This recipe can accommodate any kind of leftover meat. For a vegetarian option, you can substitute cooked rice or any grain of your liking.

Making your own yogurts

Hi guys,

Making your own yogurts is easier and faster than people often realize.
I have been making my own yogurts for quite a while: I love that I can control exactly what I put inside, no hidden unwanted ingredients. In addition, live cultures in your homemade yogurts are good for you, as they help your digestive system.
Bonus notes: it's fun and you can create your own special flavor combinations you won't be able to find in store!

There are a few keys to successfully make your own yogurts at home:

• The quality of your ingredients:   

 It seems obvious. Of course, the better the ingredients you start with, the better the result. So try to use the freshest most flavorful ingredients you can get.

• The quality of your milk.  

I used unpasteurized raw milk from a local farm. This type of milk is the best you can get to make successful yogurts. If you don't want to go that route, you have to know that the higher the fat in your milk, the firmer your yogurts will be. Store bought low fat yogurts usually contain thickening agents or have been strained to improve their consistency.

• The quality of your starter. 

 The starter is a mixture of bacteria that makes the milk turn into yogurt by fermentation. There are two ways to obtain a starter: buy a freeze-dry yogurt starter (one of my favorite is Yo Gourmet Freeze Dried Yogurt Starter) or use a yogurt with live cultures (I had the best results using the Brown Cow Farm ones)

• The incubation time and temperature.

The bacteria that ferment milk into yogurts are thermophilic, meaning that they thrive at high temperatures (around 110˚F / 45˚C). You can incubate your yogurts in warm water overnight in your close oven (I did it for years and it works OK), but, in my hands, the best way to achieve perfect yogurts is to invest in a yogurt maker. I bought a Euro Cuisine YM80 Yogurt Maker from Amazon and couldn't go back to the oven method anymore: it's more straight forwards (you press a button and you're done, whereas you have to check the temperature of your water before placing the yogurts on the oven) and the results are always great.


Now, let's make our own yogurts!
As a general process, you will have to follow these simple steps:

1. You first need to heat your milk to just below boiling temperature (175˚F / 80˚C). This step is necessary to break down the milk proteins and have a thick homogenous consistency instead of separation during the fermentation process.
2.  Let it cool down quickly to 105˚F / 42˚C (warn to the touch), by placing your pan in your sink filled up with cold water for example.
3. Mix about 1 cup of warm milk to your starter (dried powder or yogurt) until the starter is dissolved completely
4. Add your starter mixture to the rest of the milk and stir gently.
5. Transfer to clean jars
6. Incubate in your yogurt maker or close oven for 8-16 hours
7. Place your yogurts in the fridge at least a couple of hours to let them set completely

 And now, the fun part: choosing your flavor! This week, it will be Blood Orange - Cardamon yogurts (for 7 yogurts, to fill the Euro Cuisine YM80 Yogurt Maker jars).

1. Heat 1 quart /liter of milk of choice (remember: higher the fat content milk will give you firmer yogurts)  + 1/8 to 1/4 cup of sugar (I use evaporated cane sugar) + the zest of one blood orange (my advice is to pick organic fruit for the zest as you don't really want to ingest nasty pesticides) or regular orange + 2 cardamon pods
2. Cool down to 105˚F / 42˚C 
3. remove the cardamon pods
4. Mix 6 oz (a single serving container) of Vanilla yogurt with active live cultures (my favorite one is Brown Cow Cream Top yogurt) to about 1 cup of your warm milk mixture and add to the rest of the milk
5. Transfer to jars and incubate overnight
6. Let rest in the fridge for a few hours
7. Enjoy!