Good eatin’ from the garden

My main reason for gardening is growing something tasty I can eat, so last night was a thriller at the dinner table. I had the first green beans of the season.

I grew two new types of pole beans, one was called Smeraldo and the other is Kwintus. Both beans are long and flat, and I got both kinds of seed from Park Seeds. I was disappointed in the germination and the way the bugs devoured them when they first came up, but I think part of that was my own dang fault. Beans like warm soil, but I'm always in such a hurry to plant in the spring that I think I plant them too early. Next year, I'll try waiting until mid-June to plant and I think they'll do better. The smeraldo beans are really sweet and tasty. 

I've been reading various recipes for fried squash blossoms (and received a deep fryer for Christmas from my son) so I decided I had to try them last night, too.
I won't repeat the recipes since there are already a ton of them online, but I decided to not just fry them, but to stuff them with cheese and herbs, too. The only problem was I had to go to the grocery store after work, so by the time I got home, my husband was hungry and not willing for me to take my time thinking about herb combinations and the perfect ones to complement the ricotta cheese. I grabbed some basil while I was in the garden hunting for squash blossoms and called it good.
Which reminds me, if you know you want to try making deep fried squash blossoms, don't wait until the evening to pick them. Pick them in the morning, when they're open. At the end of the day, they're closed and wrinkled, making them harder to open, pluck the stamen out and stuff with cheese and herbs.
I stuffed with ricotta and basil, which was too boring. Next time, I'll try goat cheese and basil, rosemary and thyme. 
I didn't take pics of every step of the process, due to the fact that my poor husband was wasting away from hunger. I used a sandwich bag as a pastry bag for the cheese, which made it easy to squeeze just a bit into each flower. I also dipped in an egg, and then a flour/corn meal mixture prior to plopping them in the deep fryer.
In spite of the boring stuffing mixture, the blossoms were pretty tasty. Of course, shoelaces would probably be tasty after dipping it in eggs and a seasoned flour mixture and then tried 'til golden.