Flower power!

Here in the Thorne Hall greenhouses I'm growing 10 pumpkin plants. They have just started producing about seven big showy male flowers every day! I have to wait until female flowers start blooming before I can do any experiments, so what have I been doing with continual supply of pollen-producing males? I've been eating them. Here is the recipe I have been using:

Fresh flowers (pumpkin, zucchini, squash, etc)
1 egg
Italian bread crumbs
Cooking oil
White cheese (optional)

Collect the flowers in the afternoon sometime after they have collapsed. These are dead flowers and they will never reopen. Refrigerate them until you're ready to cook, but they generally will not keep for more than one day because they are so moist. Rinse the flowers and make sure no bugs are inside! Crack the egg and breadcrumbs in separate bowls. Start heating the oil in a pan. Beat the egg into a uniform orange color and dip each flower individually. Cover the flowers in breadcrumbs one-by-one and put them all on the pan at the same time. Quickly flip them until golden brown on both sides. Add a layer of cheese to them as they cool and eat! You won't believe how much sweet summery flavor comes from the flowers.

This would be a great thing to do with kids because you can each man a station: dipper, breader, fryer and cheese-layer. Only adults and trained professionals should be the fryers, though! Next time I'm going to try putting the cheese inside the flower before dipping and breading.

Have a flower power weekend!