Sunny Squash Blossoms

For better or worse (often worse), I am one of those over-tolerant people. I am open-minded. I accept things. I make do. I forgive (except the unforgivable—yes, there is such a thing). I eat squash.
No, it’s not a favorite. But my Pollyanna tendencies, catholic as they are, are wide-ranging and expansive. As with a lot of things, and a lot of people, I look for the best in them. Surely the very best a squash has to offer is its flower.
To begin with, squash blossoms are as irresistibly sunny as Pollyana herself. They are pretty but fragile, so use them as soon after you buy (or if you are lucky, gather) them, before they wilt. Despite putting them in water (if on stems), they will fade fast, so stuff them right away even if you are going to cook them later. Naturally, I like to fry them. But you can poach or steam them, stuffed or not, if you insist.








Fried Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms, Mexican-style
They’re only Mexican-style because of the cheese and the beer. Treat zucchini flowers as their delicate nature demands: minimally. Serves 4 as an appetizer or a side to plain grilled chicken or fish.
One dozen fresh picked zucchini flowers, preferably with stems
½ cup queso fresco (or use farmers cheese, ricotta, or goat cheese)
1 ear corn
¼ tea salt
freshly ground pepper
1 large egg, beaten and divided
½ cup flour
3 oz, approx, Corona™ or other lager, enough to moisten
salt
olive oil for frying
salt
lemon or lime (optional)
Gently separate the leaves of the flower and, using your finger nails, clip off the pistil of the flower at the base of the stem; you should be able to see the hollow of the stem. If your flowers are dirty, wipe them carefully with a paper towel so as not to tear them; do not wash.
In a small bowl, cut the corn from the cob with a sharp knife, then scrape the cob to extract any milk; as mentioned last week, the corn is a little dry this year, so not to worry if there isn’t much. Add the ½ cup of cheese, crumbled well, and the salt and pepper; stir/break up with a fork. Add ½ the beaten egg, reserving the rest for the batter, and stir.
Using a small spoon—an iced tea spoon works very well, but so does a plastic picnic spoon—open the flowers with your fingers and spoon some of the corn-cheese filling into the cavity: how much will depend on the size of your flowers, which may vary. Fill them to the top of the cavity, where the blossoms separate into the darker petals. Pull the petals together into a point or, on smaller flowers, fold them over a bit. Set aside on paper towels.
In another small bowl, mix the flour and a little salt, and stir in the egg and beer until you have a batter about the viscosity of thick heavy cream.
Choose a heavy frying pan and pour in about ¼” of olive oil. Heat to medium high; you can also use an electric frying pan heated to about 360F, and if you can fry outside, do: these spatter. Holding a flower by the stem, put it head-first into the batter and twist/twirl it to cover; place it in the pan. Repeat with additional flowers, being careful not to crowd the pan. Fry the flowers until they are golden brown, turning once or twice; remove to paper towels to drain, and salt. Serve at once, as is or with a squeeze of lemon or lime, with a glass of white wine.
                                                                   

Farmer’s Cheese: Endangered Species

I would not normally have written about farmer’s cheese, something I buy at the market, except that over the past few years I’ve noticed it has been harder and harder to find. And recently, almost impossible. After a while it occurred to me that the stores were not simply out of stock temporarily, but perhaps permanently. I decided to ask.
As I had begun to suspect, most stores have stopped carrying farmer’s cheese. You may well ask, why? Because it has a short shelf life, I’m told—it doesn’t last. Oh no: it doesn’t have preservatives—the nerve! It’s a real product—let’s get rid of it and just carry the processed stuff with a half-life of a zillion years! There’s no demand, they say, without irony to a person who is standing in front of them asking for it.
So naturally I am inclined to ask, which comes first, the lack of demand, or the unavailability? And  also, to be fair-minded, does it really matter if there’s no more farmer’s cheese?
I say it does matter, and that there would be more demand if there were greater availability and awareness. (Fresh mozzarella, I’m thinking, another not-so-long-lasting cheese, had little demand in the supermarkets until you could, like, buy it there.) Farmer’s cheese has some special qualities. First, it’s a fresh cheese. Fresh cheeses are great for, among other things, spreading on a piece of bread with a little salt and pepper, or accompanied by a sweet or spicy condiment, or mixed with garlic and herbs. Very similar to fresh mild goat cheese, or chevre, but cheaper. (It’s usually made from cow’s milk, not goat, in this country.) Second, it’s light and low in calories and fat as cheeses go: about 50 calories and 2.5 grams of fat per ounce, which is less than cream cheese or soft goat cheese. It also has about 5 grams of protein.
But mainly, I need it for certain things. Chief among them is the making of blintzes or the little farmer’s cheese pancakes below—I call them blintz cakes because they use many of the same ingredients as blintzes, but they are actually an old New England griddle cake. I’ve tried well-drained cottage cheese and ricotta as alternatives, but they’re just not the same. And for decades I’ve used farmer’s cheese as a near-perfect substitute for queso blanco, a Mexican cheese that can be hard to find outside of urban neighborhoods or Mexican markets, and that is a must for garnishing all kinds of tortilla-based dishes, especially tostadas. And while I don’t make the Russian Easter specialty paska too often, when I do there is nothing else that works so well, or is so authentic. Ditto for cheese pierogi.
If you go looking for this cheese, therefore, you are most likely to find it in a neighborhood populated by those who use it for traditional cooking: Jews, Russians, Polish, Portuguese. But it is disappearing even in those neighborhoods where, increasingly, the markets that serve them are large chains that deal with equally large distributors of generic goods. So if you find it, get it while you can. In more ways than one, this cheese is not going to last.
Blintz Cakes
These are best complemented by something sweet, like maple syrup or a fruit sauce. I like both together. Serves 2, for about 12 3” cakes.
1 cup Farmer’s cheese 
4 T sour cream
4 T flour
2 large eggs
Generous ¼ tea salt
Butter
Pull the cheese apart loosely with a fork. In a small bowl, beat the egg lightly then stir in the cheese, sour cream, and salt until just combined. Heat a griddle medium-hot. Butter it, and drop the mixture into small cakes with a tablespoon. When they begin to dry at the edges and you can slide your spatula below, turn them; they should be light brown on the underside; if too dark, lower your heat. Cook on the second side until light brown. The total cooking time, if your heat is correct, should be about 4 minutes; the cakes should be slightly puffy and airy. Serve with butter and syrup and/or blueberry sauce (below).
Blueberry Sauce
Frozen blueberries from inventory are perfect for this. Makes about 1 cup.
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
2 tea cornstarch dissolved in 2 tea cold water
½ tea vanilla
1 cup blueberries
A few twists of the nutmeg mill and a dash of cinnamon
Pinch salt
1 drop pure orange oil or 1 tea lemon juice
Heat the sugar and water to dissolve; turn up the heat, add the cornstarch/water, and boil for a minute or so until thickened to a sauce. Add the blueberries, vanilla, and seasoning and cook another minute, or until the blueberries have mostly broken down; strain or leave the sauce as is, which will be a bit textured (this is what I do for something like this). If you want the blueberries whole, add them at the end a few seconds before taking off the heat.