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!