While making the rounds at the Farmer’s Market this weekend, a beautiful, bright yellow bunch of squash blossoms stopped me in my tracks.  I had never previously cooked squash blossoms, though I have always been thrilled to see them on a menu.  I decided that I would fork over the four dollars for a dozen.  Now, every girl loves a nice bouquet, but I discovered that my husband likes to get flowers too, especially when they are seasonal and edible.

I put aside my temptation to place them in a vase on my dining room table (they really are beautiful!) and we began to brainstorm recipes.  We were torn between two preparations, both of which we had discovered on our honeymoon it Italy.  The first idea was to stuff them with something, like cheese or risotto, bread them, and deep fry them.  This is a seasonal favorite in Italy, and it is also one of the appetizers we passed at our wedding, the food item that undoubtedly received the highest praise from our guests.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this preparation, and I recommend that you try it, but it is certainly the more mainstream approach in American kitchens.

The other preparation we discovered in Italy was to stir the blossoms into a risotto.  We decided on this preparation for two reasons:  for one, it seemed to us like a creative use of the ingredient, and furthermore, it allowed for the flavor of the squash blossoms to shine.

The blossoms can be slightly bitter, so make sure you remove the stems and the base of the flower.  Cut them in half lengthwise to inspect for bugs, and chop them into quarters or thirds.  They will shrink the same way a leafy green will during the cooking process.  What I enjoyed most about this recipe was how delicate the flavors were and how beautiful the dish looked when served.  I would recommend serving the risotto with a nice light fish or scallops and a crisp white wine.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and gently smashed
• 2 medium zucchinis, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 8-12 squash blossoms, stems and base removed, roughly chopped
• 1 cup dry, white wine, room temperature
• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock, warmed in a small pot
• 1/4 cup Parmegianno Reggiano cheese
• 1/4 cup Romano cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a deep sauce pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onions and garlic and a pinch of salt.  Saute until the onions are soft.  Remove the garlic cloves and add the rice.  Once the rice becomes translucent, add the wine and a ladle of stock.  Stir frequently and allow the liquid to reduce until it starts to thicken.  Continue to add more stock, ladle at a time, stirring frequently, until you have only two or three ladles of stock remaining.  Add the chopped zucchini, and continue to add stock and stir.

When you come to the last ladle of stock, stir in the squash blossoms.  Add your final ladle full of stock, and stir gently until the risotto is moist, but the liquid is thick.  Add both cheeses and the butter to finish the risotto and taste for seasoning. Serve immediately.

Serves four.

Part two of this post is as casual and simple as part one ‘spring ramps with poached eggs and toast’, and at least equally delicious.  Pizza is a great vehicle for ramps because it gives them room to shine, and the salty prosciutto and savory mushrooms make a brilliant combination.  This pizza couldn’t be easier to make, either, because you precook the dough a bit, pre-saute the mushrooms and ramps, and spread a layer of creme friache instead of laboring over a sauce.  We prepared the whole meal in about twenty-five minutes.

When this pizza emerged from the oven, the aroma alone was enough to stir our normally docile dog into a mild frenzy.  We both agreed that we would be quite happy with this pizza even if we had ordered it from a gourmet pizzeria.  If you can’t find baby shitake mushrooms, you can use regular shitakes if you remove the woody stems and chop them into bite sized pieces.  Also, given that it was mid-week and we started cooking at eight, we used a pre-made pizza dough from Whole Foods, which was actually quite good.  You can also usually convince your favorite pizza parlor to sell you some dough, or certainly, if you are so inclined, you can make it yourself!  Either way, you will impress a crowd with this one!

This recipe is made much easier with a pizza stone and peel.  If you don’t have one, it is a worthwhile investment if you think you would like to make pizza at home.  The recipe below makes one large pizza and serves 3-4 people.

Ingredients:

• Pizza dough (~8 oz. or enough for one large pizza)
• 1/4 lb. thinly slices prosciutto de Parma (amount allows for minimal snacking)
• 1/4 lb. of fresh baby shitake mushrooms

• 10-15 fresh ramps, cleaned and sliced into diagonal strips
• 1/2 cup  creme friache
• 1/3 cup shaved Pecorino Romano
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (for brushing on the dough)
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 550 degrees with the pizza stone in it.  For best results, put a layer of corn meal on the pizza stone and flour your pizza peel.  Toss or roll out your pizza dough and set it on your peel while the oven preheats and you complete the next step.

In a saute pan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the baby shitake mushrooms and saute for about three minutes.  Add the ramps and season with a pinch of salt, and saute for one more minute, and then remove from the heat.  Set aside.

Once the oven is hot, brush your pizza with the olive oil and pre-cook for about 5 minutes or until the dough becomes lightly golden brown and bubbly.  Remove from the oven.

To assemble the pizza, spread the creme fraiche in an even layer over the dough.  Then, break up the prosciutto into bite size pieces and spread over pizza.  Evenly distribute the ramps and mushrooms.  Return to the oven for another 3 minutes.

Remove the pizza from the oven and garnish with fresh black pepper and the Pecorino cheese.  Serve immediately.

Ramps, a remarkable member of the onion and garlic family, only emerge for a few weeks each year, and it is a time I await with much anticipation.  Ramps are wild leeks, and their flavor is a beautiful combination of spring garlic and mild sweet onion.  They look a little bit like scallions with wispier, more tapered leaves.  The whole ramp is edible, and can be sauteed, roasted, grilled, or eaten raw.  If you ask me, they are just a perfect ingredient.

Many people advise that ramps can be prepared in any way you might use green onions, but I think ramps are too delicate and have too spectacular a flavor to take a back seat.  My favorite way to eat ramps is in simple preparations that don’t contain too many competing flavors.

Since ramps only come around for a short period of time, I tend to go on a “ramp”age.  When I found them at Russo’s market in Watertown, MA, one of my favorite places to shop for food, I bought out most of their inventory, and intend to eat them in almost all of the meals I prepare at home over the next week.  For that reason, this will be a three part post that offers three different preparations of this special vegetable.

The first preparation is an aggressively seasonal dish that glorifies all things strictly available in Spring.  It is a simple but wonderfully comforting an delicious dish that works for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  The fresh morels add a wonderful richness to the dish that works so well with the garlicky punch of the ramps, but any fresh wild mushroom, like chanterelles or oyster mushrooms, would also work well.  So hit up the early season farmer’s market or your favorite specialty foods store and pick up a huge bunch of ramps, because once you try this dish, you will be ready for parts 2 and 3 of this post! Don’t wait, though, because you will miss this precious season!

Ingredients:

• 10-12 fresh ramps, cleaned and cut into diagonal strips
• 3-4 oz. of fresh morel mushrooms, cut in half lengthwise
• 1/4 cup fresh peas, removed from pod
• 2 Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• Shaved Pecorino Romano cheese to taste
• 2 slices of good toast (I prefer sourdough)
• 4 farm fresh eggs
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Season well with salt and blanch the potatoes for about 5 minutes or until they are cooked to al dente.  Remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon  and set aside.  In the same boiling water, blanch the peas for 1-2 minutes.  Remove and set aside.

Prepare a pot for poaching the eggs by bringing at least two inches of water to a boil and then reducing the heat to low.  Keep on low until you are ready to poach the eggs.

In a saucepan, heat the butter and oil over medium heat.  Add the potatoes and mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and let caramelize for about 5 minutes.  Add the ramps and saute for another two minutes, tossing or stirring frequently.  Add the peas and remove the pan from the heat.

In the last 5 minutes, put your bread in the toaster and poach your eggs.  For great poaching technique, see our Yukon hash post.

Assemble the dish but placing the toast on the bottom, topping with the sauteed vegetables.  Add two poached eggs, garnish with the shaving of Pecorino Romano cheese.  Crack fresh black pepper of the dish and serve immediately.

Serves 2.

I set out to make some sort of simple pasta with a hint of some Spanish Manchego cheese.  Most of the time a little cheese typically goes on top of a finished pasta that we concoct from time to time – but I want to make this a little bit different.  So I decided to start with a roux and add the cheese after the roux had turned into a bechamel.  Of course, I didn’t want to make Mac and Cheese (this would have been easy with this method), so I decided to also add some spicy red chili flake and chopped canned tomatoes to the sauce before adding some of it to my sauteed vegetables.

This was totally experimental, the sort of food that I love to cook – no recipe, no ideas from other blogs, just some organic vegetables and some pasta with a sauce (that I was actually not expecting to turn out well at all).  But the result was surprisingly delicious.  Part of the credit has to go to the organic ingredients from Boston organics.

Overall, a pretty simple interpretation, good for weeknight dinner, but good enough to serve to guests as well.  I’d advise against trying to enhance it with meat or anything though – keep it simple and vegetarian, you’ll like it I promise.  Here’s what to do:

For the vegetables:

• 8-10 button or crimini mushrooms – cut in thick slices
• Steps and leaves from a bunch of Swiss Chard – chopped
• 1 medium onion – large dice
• 1 large head of broccoli – florets chopped
• 1 tsp. red chili flakes (more if you want it really spicy)
• 4-5 cloves fresh garlic – diced
• 1 lb. dried spaghetti or linguine – whatever you prefer
• Olive oil
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper

For the sauce:

• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of milk (or more depending on how think you want your sauce)
• ~4 oz. Manchego cheese – grated finely
• 1 tsp. red chili flakes
• 1 Tbsp. dried basil leaves
• 1 can diced canned tomatoes
• Salt and pepper

Place a large pot of water to boil over high heat for the pasta.  Start by cooking the vegetables – add a pan over medium heat to the stove and add some olive oil to the pan.  Add in the onions a broccoli first, season with a little salt and toss to combine.  Cook down and add the mushrooms with a pinch more salt.  Add the garlic and chard next and cook down over lower heat to caramelize the veg for 10-15 minutes.

While the vegetables are cooking, start with the sauce, but make sure you’re in good shape with the veg, as the sauce will require constant attention to get right.  Start with a whisk and a small-ish saucepan over low heat and melt the butter.  Add the flour to the butter and whisk to combine.  From here you want to cook the roux over low heat until it becomes a little darker color – stirring constantly to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Add the milk next and stir quickly – now you’ve got yourself a basic bechamel sauce.  Season with the salt and pepper to taste and add in the grated cheese and stir vigorously to incorporate.  Add the chili flakes and basil and eventually the tomatoes and mix to combine.  Bring to a decent heat and then add most of the sauce to the vegetables and stir to combine.  Cook the pasta (salting the water first of course) then add some of the pasta water to the sauce (around 1/3 cup of it – you want to thin it out some here.  Drain and add the pasta to the sauce and mix to combine.  Serve immediately and enjoy!

One of our favorite things to get for take-out in the Boston, Cambridge area is the eggplant panini and Insalata salad from the City Girl Cafe in Inman Square Cambridge.   The sandwich is as divine as it is simple: roasted eggplant with some homemade garlic aioli, simple field greens and some fresh mozzarella.  Put it on a freshly baked hearty sourdough baguette, into a panini press and bang, a delicious vegetarian sandwich that’s sweet, savory and a deliciously crunchy texture.

So with some left over Italian eggplant from the farmer’s market and no idea what to do with them, I decided to re-create our favorite sandwich, with some personal customizations of course.  Aimee always mandates that her favorite part of any sandwich is the condiments, and I’m starting to agree with her.  I’ve always mandated that the meat and bread make the sandwich, but when you can make your own condiments, they really shine.

I took a little bit of inspiration for one of these condiments from a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, a consistently excellent blog written by Deb in New York City (it’s one of our favorites).  Her recipe was for Rigatoni with Eggplant Puree – which looked absolutely delicious.  I decided to make her eggplant puree, but instead of pairing it with pasta, I decided to use it as a condiment for my roasted eggplant sandwich.  I also made some homemade aioli, which turned out VERY garlicky, but delicious nonetheless.  I finally think I’m getting the homemade mayonnaise thing down, after having made a few that turned out too thick.  I stripped out the cheese too, as the creaminess of the eggplant puree and aioli was quite enough.

Anyway, the end result was delicious and ultimately rich, especially for something without any protein.  If I had a lunch restaurant, this would be on the menu.  The puree was delicious and sweet – and the post-puree splash of good balsamic vinegar was key for the dish.  Here’s how to do it:  For the eggplant puree:

• 1 loaf of SUPER FRESH sourdough boule or baguette bread – sliced to a desired width (or in half if it’s a baguette)
• 4 Italian eggplants (light purple, skinny type) or 2 purple people eater eggplants (the regular sort) – 1/2 of them peeled and cut into cubes, the other half sliced into 1/2-1″ thick slices
• 1 pint (15-20) medium grape tomatoes

• 4-5 cloves garlic – left whole in their peels
• 5-6 mint leaves – spearmint preferred!
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp. top quality balsamic vinegar – the best stuff you got! Click here to get some insane stuff online
• 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• Field greens or spring mix
• Fresh mozzarella cheese (optional)
• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Take a baking sheet and line it with a silicon mat or parchment paper.  In a medium mixing bowl, add the cubed and sliced eggplant, tomatoes and garlic cloves and add some salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil.  Give them a mix and then spread them out onto the baking sheet.  Place them in the oven and roast the vegetables until they’re soft and cooked through – around 40 minutes.

While the vegetables are cooking, make the aioli:

• 1 medium clove of fresh garlic (2 cloves if you want it REALLY garlicky)
• 1-2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1 egg – yolk and SOME of the white, not all of it
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• salt and finely ground pepper to taste

I use my food processor to do this, but if you don’t have one, use a whisk and a bowl.  Add the egg, lemon, garlic and salt and pepper.  Mix them until just combined.  Then with the machine running (or with you whisking) slowly add the oil in a slow, steady stream to form the emulsion.  Adjust seasoning to taste.

When the vegetables are finished roasting, peel the garlic and add all of them to the food processor.  Add in the olive oil, mint leaves, lemon juice and vinegar and puree until fairly smooth.  You’re looking for a pesto-like substance.  Taste the mix and add some salt and pepper to your liking.

Next, cut the bread into desired slices.  Add some eggplant mix to one side and some aioli to the other.  Top with your roasted eggplant slices, some field greens and mozzarella cheese – or add whatever you want!  Toast the sandwich in a pan (with a little butter if you want) or in a panini press if you have one.  When you put the sandwiches in the pan, place a brick or heavy pan on top to press the sandwich down.  This will give you your ‘panini’ effect.  Enjoy!