Weekend farmer's market concoctions

Earlier this week I had been to the market and found that squash blossoms were still for sale at multiple stalls. I bought some on Wednesday, only to find them disintegrated into a sad little puddle on the counter the next day (I think the counter got wet from cleaning). On Saturday we picked up another basket and decided to make them as an afternoon snack. After washing the blossoms, I raided the fridge and found some leftover pork, pecorino and truffle sausages from Sparrow's and a big hunk of mild goat cheese. Combined, the blossoms were then stuffed and dipped in a simple mix of peppered semolina and water, then shallow fried and drained on paper towels. We ate them so fast that I didn't get a chance to take any pictures, but below is another batch we did earlier in the summer:

Anyway -- this weekend's excursion to the farmer's market brought us back to Garry Kuneman's freezers to see what we could make for Sunday dinner. He's become a weekly stop for us, and we've had such good luck with his cuts in the past (we made a really succulent bison stew and a beef brisket). I was sad to see that he was still out of buffalo hot dogs, but he had some nice skirt steaks at a reasonable price.

I've made flank steaks before, wrapped around spinach and blue cheese, but since Mark's not a big fan of blue cheese (and it was his night to be responsible for deliciousness) he took to experimenting with some ideas. On Saturday, the beef thawed in the fridge. On Sunday, a quick look in our garden found a huge number of cherry tomatoes ready to eat, which made us want to get rid of the larger, squishier tomatoes we had in stock. As the steak marinated, he cut the tomatoes up with some red onions, garlic, and serranos from the garden... add some jack cheese, wrap it all up in meat, and you have, essentially, meat salsa roll-ups:

We tied them up in little bundles for even grilling, and added toothpicks on the sides so stuffing wouldn't fall out.

In the meantime, we had some old red potatoes left over and a small box of fresh spring peas. If you're too lazy to make two sides, why not smash them both together? I threw boiled potatoes, lemon zest, some chopped green onion, peas, and some fresh mint all in a bowl and started to mash... then formed little patties to fry up in butter:The end result:
Not the prettiest, but yummy, simple, and fast nonetheless! Cheese was oozing out the steaks, and the salsa surprised us with little pockets of heat from the serranos. The potatoes were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with the delicate flavor of peas and lemon. While peas and mint are a usual pairing, it didn't seem to go quite right in this concoction...maybe basil would be better, or no herbs at all. Despite that, Mark thinks these fried potato nuggets may be a good way to get kids to eat their veggies. Who can pass up anything bite-sized and fried in butter??