I am confident to cook most of my farmers market haul without consulting references, but zucchini blossoms send me into panic mode and I dive deep into whatever my miscellaneous Italian cookbooks and the Internet have to tell me. In past years this has yielded up some interesting, if ultimately flawed, techniques. Patricia Wells’s Trattoria recommends making a meringue of a batter with three egg whites (along with flour, water and beer) which makes a nice fluffy coating. Nice and fluffy, that is, until the meringue produced after furious whisking starts to droop, and the battered blossoms with it. Even the first few flowers when the meringue was working were coated in a great puff of a shell that drew most of the attention to itself. I don’t remember on what website I found the recipe for the disaster of the year before that (I think club soda was involved) but if it had been any good, I would have saved it.

With two consecutive years of failure under my belt, I was determined as ever not to buy zucchini blossoms this year. I put up a pretty good fight, having delayed the purchase until late July before Martha finally got her way and we went home with a bundle of bright orange blossoms in our basket. Unsuccessful in my attempt to avoid them altogether, I was at least determined not to repeat the mistakes of the previous years, and by my calculation principal among them was reliance on dubious and finicky recipes. So I scrapped the recipes and went with what I knew in my heart to be true: when it comes to frying vegetables or anything else, you can’t go wrong with beer batter. Mine was made with half a bottle of my home-brewed Irish red ale and enough flour to achieve a thin consistency that was still substantial enough to fully coat the flowers.

It just goes to show you, to paraphrase a wiser man than myself, beer really is the solution to all of life’s problems. These fried blossoms were just what I was after: the batter was crisp but still delicate enough that you could tell you were eating a flower. Light salting after they came out of the oil was all the needed seasoning.

If you have the option, buy zucchini blossoms with long stems. These impart two advantages: the stem serves as a handle allowing you to swirl the flower fully in batter without getting your hand dirty, and this handle also affords you a method for lowering the blossoms into 350°F vegetable oil without burning off your fingerprints. It’s a real win-win.

While I’ve faced substantial doubt in the past about what to fry zucchini blossoms in, there’s never been any question what to dip them in once they are fried. I make aioli (whisk together a mashed clove of garlic, an egg yolk, citrus juice, salt, pepper and a little mustard then slowly whisk in about 3/4 of a cup of oil) thinned by using a higher proportion of lime or lemon juice — the thinness of the sauce is important as the delicate flowers won’t stand up to being dragged through a thick mayo.

Not three hours after Martha published the news yesterday that we had taken delivery of a winter-blues-banishing box of limes and Meyer lemons from the good people at FruitShare, we received an email from one of their marketing people thanking us for the post. Lest you think something untoward has taken place behind your innocent blog-reading back, dear blog-reader, let me assure you that we bought our fruit share fair and square. Martha didn’t receive any kind of solicitation or compensation for posting about it — at least not that she has told me about!

In addition to some nice words about the blog — flattery is the surest route to any blogger’s heart — our fruity correspondent included some recipes, and, in a change from most food marketing, the recipes actually looked pretty good. I was particularly drawn to the Meyer lemon pesto, since I am a fan of off-beat pestos. After work, with neither plans nor ingredient shopping trips made for dinner, I found myself making Meyer lemon pesto sooner than expected.

Martha was glad I did; she loved the bright lemon flavor. I personally found it a little bitter from the pith, but it did get me thinking of warmer climates.

This recipe is basically the same as the one I received in the email, except I substituted parsley for basil and sunflower seeds for pine nuts — all in the interest of avoiding a trip to the store.

Meyer Lemon Pesto

• One Meyer lemon, cut into pieces and seeded
• ½ cup parsley leaves
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 2 T toasted sunflower seeds
• ¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 3 T olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Process first four ingredients in food processor until ground. Transfer to a small bowl; stir in cheese and oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

We ate it over fresh fettuccine; it would be a great accompaniment to a white-fleshed fish, as well.

It’s a shame, too, because what  better time for the comforts and reassurances of a fresh-baked loaf of bread than after a day of the humiliations of office labor? No better time, that’s what. So today I decided to stop whining about my problems and  actually do something about them: I took a friend with me to work.

We had a nice bike ride through the snow, my bread dough and I, enjoying the subtly rutted and newly slushy streets and trails of Minneapolis. One nice thing is that I did not have to worry about my dough fermenting prematurely during my ride, since the ambient temperature in Minnesota right now is far colder than a refrigerator.

When I arrived at work, the dough went straight to the fridge and I was off to a dedicated and productive day. I only allowed my focus to break away from my labors at the stroke of three, when it was time to take the dough out to warm up. I set it by the water cooler, where I am sure it had many conversations with my coworkers about the latest happenings in sports and popular culture.

Soon enough five o’clock rolled around, and it was time for my dough and I to end our day on the job. Just a short bike ride home separated me from baking and weekday-bread-induced bliss.

Since I knew I wouldn’t have much time to shape and proof the dough once I got home, I had planned on making a simple bread, and it doesn’t get much simpler in terms of shaping than focaccia: just take the wet mass of dough, plop it down in a sheet pan coated with olive oil, pour on some more olive oil, rest a half hour, and then bake at 425ºF for about 20 minutes, until the bread looks brown and crispy. If you’re wondering about my dough recipe, it was:

• 12 oz AP flour
• 12 oz whole wheat flour
• ½ tsp yeast
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 18 oz water

With the overnight fermentation, it’s not that important to knead this dough — a good thing, too, because at 75% hydration kneading would be a challenge.

Proofing and baking the dough gave me the perfect amount of time to put together the rest of dinner. The bread came out very well, and much sooner than would have been possible without bringing it to the office. I think I’ve found my new commute partner.

Similar to croquetas, arancini require none of the work or planning of making a thick béchamel: just take cold leftover risotto, form it into small balls, coat the balls with flour, beaten egg, and bread crumbs, then fry in oil at 350ºF for a few minutes until deep golden brown. As with anything fried, remember to salt the arancini after taking them out of the oil.

These are good on their own, hot and crisp from the fryer, or you could serve them with anything you like to dip fried food in: marinara, ranch dressing — we ate them with a mixture of mayonnaise and sriracha, which may not sound wonderful but worked at the time. We may have even enjoyed these more than the risotto itself.

Corzetti, according to the Encyclopedia of Pasta, are a Ligurian pasta shape made from wheat flour, eggs and water. Traditional corzetti, corzetti stampato, require the use of special wooden molds that press the pasta into a disc shape with decorations, like a coin of pasta. For those of us not so fortunate as to own a Ligurian pasta stamp, there are corzetti tiae co-e die — corzetti rolled with the fingers. To form this shape, one pinches off chickpea-sized balls of dough and presses them down to the board with both index fingers to form a rough figure eight. This process works best with a partner — one person to pinch off the dough and the other to press it — I daresay this would be a good opportunity to involve a child, should you have one readily available.

I’d like to throw in a quick plug here for my preferred method for making fresh pasta dough using the food processor, which I learned from Cook’s Illustrated. It is so easy: two cups of flour in the processor pulsed to distribute evenly, add three eggs and process until a dough starts to form. Add water by the tablespoon until the grains of dough join together in a ball. Knead a couple of times on the counter, let rest 30 minutes and you’re ready to start shaping your pasta. Yes, it will make your Italian grandmother cry, but fresh pasta on a weeknight is worth it.

Assuming nobody wants to offend their Italian grandmother further, some discussion of the proper sauce for corzetti is in order. Oretta Zanini de Vita suggests corzetti are sauced “traditionally with a tomatoless sauce flavored with marjoram, or with the classic Ligurian pesto, but also with different local sauces.” Pesto was the reason I found this shape in the first place — I’ve had a tub of it sitting in the fridge since high basil season practically screaming for a quick weeknight dinner.

Lightly sauced and accompanied by bread and salad, corzetti make a satisfying meal: the roughness of the hand-shaping lends an interesting variety as well as a toothsome quality to the dish.