zucchini blossoms stuffed with cheese and fried in olive oil

we visited the food market in florence.....taking in the beautiful sights...fruits, veggies, cheeses, meat, fish, fresh pasta  all of it insanely gorgeous with no yucky smells.  we went into the city for the day by bus...so we were limited to what we could carry around.  yes like idiots we bought a melon...but damn it was worth it....one awesome melon.  we saw the zucchini blossoms and knew we had to try to get them back to the village to stuff and fry.  the lovely older woman that ran the fruit shop spoke quickly in italian...we knew enough not to touch anything...we pointed and gestured with our hands how many we wanted.  she carefully selected them and wrapped them safely for us......lots of grazie, grazie

beautiful blossoms

recipe after the jump

we had an assortment of cheeses on hand that we'd picked up at the super sized grocery store in montevarchi...and so we made up a recipe based upon what we had.
6 zucchini blossoms
1/2 cup of mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup of fresh ricotta
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon lemon juice
pinch of salt
home made bread crumbs
tablespoon of the beaten egg
remainder of beaten egg for dipping
olive oil for frying

mix up the cheeses, lemon zest juice, salt, and the tablespoon of beaten egg and set aside.  set up the rest of the beaten egg in a bowl for dipping and another bowl with bread crumbs.  carefully stuff the cheese mixture into the flowers...then dip in egg, dip in bread crumbs.  fry them quickly on medium heat in a skillet with olive oil.

britany cooking up a feast

brit stuffing the blossoms note the melon on the counter.......the one we carried around florence all day!

frying the blossoms....yummy...we ate them all!!!