Stuffed courgette flowers

Today I went to visit my friends in the countryside. I witnessed the preparation of a house specialty and I asked for the recipe, so here comes.

180 g ricotta
100-200 g boiled spinach
some grated parmesan
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, chopped
15 courgette flowers
pinch of nutmeg
1 tbsp olive oil
125 g flour

Mix ricotta, spinach, parmesan, nutmeg and basil leaves. Season with pepper and salt.
Wash the flowers delicately, make an incision and remove the part in the middle.
Stuff each flower with a teaspoon of the ricotta mixture.
Make a liquid batter with flour, olive oil and some water.
Dip the the flowers quickly in the batter, let them drip a bit then fry them in frying oil.
Serve immediately, sprinkled with salt.

These were the flowers, straight from the garden.

Stuffing them

Stuffed

Frying them

and savouring them! Delicious!

Note: you can omit the parmesan for a lighter dish.

My friends live in a great house with a fantastic garden: they have a vegetable garden, a flower garden, chicken, sheep, fruit trees... and today was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for enjoying this.

We ate outside, probably for the last time this year.

My friends' dahlias

and sheep, in a meadow with an apple tree bearing loads of fruit

The hazelnut harvest

which needs to be peeled

and the walnut harvest, which we gathered in about 15 minutes; there are so many nuts this year!

and this is the loot I took home.