Pumpkin sformato

This savory pumpkin sformato is garnished with the very last zucchini blossom of the season from my humble little veggie garden. All summer long I chopped the blossoms up into salads, and also stuffed and fried them. So until next year, thank you, Signore Zucco—Mr. Zucchini.

To make the sformato (which means to unmold, as in custard) I used this recipe as a starting point but then cut way down to only make enough for two small sformatos. Essentially I made a quick little béchamel sauce, added pumpkin puree (from a can, I admit it!), then added Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese plus seasoning. The combination of pumpkin and parm-reg cheese make for intense flavors, and add to that a drizzle of pumpkin oil and it makes for a party in your mouth. So there are four kind of pumpkiny elements here—the pureed pumpkin in the sformato, the zucchini blossom, the pumpkin seeds for crunch, and the pumpkin oil. If I had thought of it, a roasted pumpkin wedge would have made for five elements from the pumpkin family. In any case, it was delicious.

 Check out my pea sformato from last spring here.