If you’re the type of person who picks honeysuckle blossoms on the trailside to taste drops of their sweet nectar, start looking around your garden for other edible flowers. The most obvious will likely be squash blossoms to stuff and fry, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Squash blooms have delicate petals atop a stiff base, so handle them with care as you harvest them and fill their cavity. Cut them off where the green stem base meets the main plant, but wait to cut off the stems and remove the stamen, which can taste bitter, as you prep them for shallow pan frying.

Most edible garden blooms wilt quickly, so it’s best to use them as soon as you harvest them. But since I recommend a midmorning harvest, you can keep squash blossoms in a cool, dry place, or in a pinch in the refrigerator, if you won’t serve them until the evening. You might be able to get away with holding them over for a day to use as garnish, but they will be challenging to stuff and rip easily. If you do tear one down its side, fill it carefully and then try using a drop of batter almost like glue to hold it together until it hits the sauté pan.

Learn more about harvesting squash flowers and get the complete recipe for Stuffed Squash Blossoms in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Any size of squash blooms can be used in other ways: sliced and sprinkled atop salads or pizza, folded into an omelet or quesadilla, tossed with other vegetables for a hot or cold pasta dish, and baked into Golden Onion and Potato Frittata. When my squash plants are huge and loaded with flowers, I’ve harvested enough to puree with a little water, salt, and pepper; freeze in cubes; and use in a light pasta sauce or Sunshine Risotto.

Squash blossoms are one of the easiest stuffed recipes I make, but other food that comes in its own edible wrapper can be well worth the effort. Here are just a few of my favorite recipes on the blog. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Summer Rolls with Lime-Chili Sauce
• Mushroom-Filled Blini
• Shrimp and Summer Squash Enchiladas with Homemade Enchilada Sauce
• Sourdough Empanadas
• Scratch-Made Pierogi
• Scratch-Made Steamed Buns

You can learn more about making other stuffed food in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.