lRosemary (particularly the Arp variety) overwinters well here in zone 6b. My oldest bush is covered with a proliferation of flowers right now, so they have been showing up in many of our meals.
Rosemary flowers add a delicious herbal bite to scrambled eggs. They help to create a lovely creme brulee - just steep the flowers in hot cream to add a light rosemary flavor to your desert. These delicate blue flowers mix well with spring greens and baby lettuce for pretty salads early in the year. I also include them in herb rubs for beef and chicken.
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Lavender jelly is a delightful way to use the flowers you dried last summer. I love cooking with lavender and frequently pair it with lemon in baked goods or creme brulee. It's the perfect thing to make and can early in the season when there aren't any other fruits ready for harvest. Learn how to make it on my Recipes page.
Lavender is delicious, with a mild sweet flavor slightly reminiscent of cherries. Pair the jelly with fruit and cheese platters when you gather friends around a table to munch and talk. My favorite is a sourdough toastie with lavender jelly, smoked gouda and a slice of crystalized ginger - yummm! We've been using lots of flowers from the spring crops on our salads this month along with home grown lettuce - what a treat. The radish blossoms taste like mild radishes, and overwintered kale and cabbage are sending up flower stalks that taste like cabbage. Sage flowers can be frozen along with the leaves to use in stuffing poultry later in the year - just put them in a zippered plastic bag with most of the air squeezed out before freezing.
As much as we like peas, it's fun and tasty to use the pea blossoms in cold meat and vegetable salads as well. They taste like, well, peas :-) Early spring is still the time to enjoy the fruits of last year's edible flower labors. We just defrosted some delicious citrus-flavored marigold cake and spread it with Sweet Floral Butter for breakfast. Paired with scrambled eggs topped with dried oregano and basil flowers it was reminiscent of summertime. Sweet, yet tart, hibiscus tea made from dried hibiscus calyxes completed the sunshiny repast.
Huge mounds of parsley are growing in my early spring garden! They overwintered well from fall plantings that were harvested and then left to keep growing. I'm looking forward to parsley salads tossed with fresh lemon juice and red bud flowers to serve alongside my asparagus which will be peeking up out of the ground soon.
Three Rainbow Swiss Chard plants surprised me this year by surviving winter, including some single digit nights! The tender new leaves are growing and will be ready for an early harvest in a couple of weeks. This is a first for me. I've never had Swiss Chard survive below 16 degrees before. Spring fever! The icy cold of this winter seems to be over.
Planted the first of our radishes yesterday afternoon - purple plum and pink beauty. Another 4 weeks and they'll be ready to roast up for dinner. I think I'll let a few of them go to seed so I can use the flowers in spring salads. Radishes only take a few weeks to grow and then just clean them and trim them. Then toss them in olive oil and kosher salt and roast them at 375 degrees until they soften (30-60 minutes depending on their size). Leave a few in the ground and it won't be long before you have radish flowers to top your casseroles or toss in your salads. I planted them in straight rows in between rows of carrots to mark off the carrot beds and get some early food from those beds. |
Sheryl Campbell
I love to grow and cook with edible flowers! I've been gardening and growing most of my own vegetables and all my own edible flowers for almost 2 decades and still learn something new every day. ArchivesCategories |