Salsa Verde is the new Buttermilk!

There's an elementary school in my neighborhood that maintains a little vegetable garden. Last summer, massive amounts of squash grew, the vines grew through the fence onto the sidewalk, and along the arms of those vines grew their best fruit (in my opinion), the blossom. At that time I had never cooked squash blossoms before and they're such spiky little flowers I was never prepared to pick them anyway. And THEN I conquered the first part ....

Well now ... they're back! And I'm prepared. And they are beginning to bud along the sidewalk again. So I picked one. IT'S PUBLIC PROPERTY!

I wanted them to have a heavy batter since I only had the one and it was lunch but I didn't have an egg and I didn't want to use milk. So I used salsa verde. I know - it was adventurous but that's the whole point, right? I cleaned out the stamen, stuffed the body with some white cheese, dipped into the flour, then the salsa, and then the flour again. Now instead of deep frying, I poured a little vegetable oil in my cast iron skillet and I held it up at an angle so the oil could form a puddle. I held it in that position with the stuffed blossom in the oil, and flipped it when one side browned. This took MAYBE a total of 45 seconds.

And .... it was delicious.