I love mussels, so when I found some at another seafood store, I was YES PLEASE. I didn’t even know how much to get, so I started with 250g. Turns out this is about 11-12 mussels, and never enough! However when I was reading up on how to cook them, I also grabbed a baguette and butter as a side.

I had found a few different liquids suggested, and ended up choosing water first, with some butter. I did make one afterwards with white wine, but funnily enough I preferred the one with water.

When I stumbled across zucchini flowers, wow, I was so filled with creative inspiration that I HAD to buy them. So expensive, but so fantastic that I couldn’t resist. I had eaten stuffed flowers at two restaurants, which was not only very appealing, but also very tasty. My favourite was when they were stuffed with crab meat. MMmmmmm!

So, since I didn’t want to overdo anything that would kill my budget, I decided I’d make a herb and cheese stuffing instead. So, I bought some ricotta, avocado, goat curd, chives, parsley, pepitas and sunflower seeds. I chopped and toasted the seeds before mixing them in. Cleaning the flowers was tricky at first, but then I learned how to handle them and managed to clean and stuff efficiently.

I also always need protein in my meals, so I opted for salmon as my accompaniment. It was only after I plated just the flowers and the salmon that I filled in the middle with leftover salad, to make it look complete.

It was so pretty and tasty, I declared myself amazing at cooking! And presentation.