Edible Flowers For Your Vibrant Garden
These edible flowers for your vibrant garden are flowers that you don't want to miss planting and eating! Let's take a look at a few that will make lovely additions to your garden and your plate!
Lavender: Oh sweet relaxing lavender, how I love you!
A little lavender goes a long way in any recipe. The flavour is quite strong so remember to use sparingly. English lavender is the touted as the best for culinary uses. You should harvest your lavender right before the flowers fully open to get the essential oils while they are most potent. Put a few dry buds in a sugar jar and use for baking. You can also chop a few of the fresh bud and bake with them by just adding them to the dough. Sprinkle a bit on a salad for a pretty garnish or use it to infuse lemonade or tea.
Check out Bon Appetit’s recipe for shortbread HERE as well as Genius Kitchen’s recipe for herbs de Provence HERE.
Chive & Garlic Blossoms This pretty, light purple, edible flower has a light onion flavour.
Chive blossoms can be tossed in a salad or, more commonly, used to garnish a dish. garlic chives produce edible white flowers with a garlic flavour that is stronger than the leaf itself.
Check out Hello Epicurious’ recipe for goat cheese scalloped potatoes with chive blossoms HERE & Food And Wine’s baby green salad with chive blossoms recipe HERE!
Squash Blossoms: These are much more popular than I knew and quite versatile!
Fried, baked or added to pasta, these blooms are delish! But remember, if you pick the blossom there will be no squash, so don’t pick them all!
FRIED: This is one of the most popular ways to prepare squash blossoms. You just batter and fry them. You could even stuff them first with ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and/ or goat cheese, add your favourite herbs like, basil, thyme or parsley and you will have yourself a side dish that is amazing! Try squeezing a little lemon and salt and pepper over them to finish them off.
BAKED: If deep frying turns you off, or you just want to try something different, you could stuff the blossoms with cheese – savoy or sweet – and then bake them in the oven. Steaming is another healthy option.
Check out The Kitchn’s recipe for cheese stuffed squash blossoms HERE.
So there you have it! Edible flowers for your vibrant garden! Why not get started today?