More Edible Flowers - Herb of the Week

I previously did a blog post on edible flowers in 2013.  Since that time I have developed a wonderful slide presentation on Edible Flowers with a chart that details what parts of flowers to use.  The program includes herb, vegetable and landscaping flowers all of which are edible in one way or another.  As the weather gets warmer and I start to get antsy for gardening season to begin the thought of some edible flowers generally pops into my head.

These days people recognize that many flowers in addition to being decorative are indeed edible which is why we see a salad topped with nasturtiums or cookies with real rose or pansy petals pressed into the frosting or even a bowl of punch with violets or violas floating on top.  However I am going to give you a few ways to use flowers in a more savory way in cooking.

Chive Blossoms

We will start with my favorite early herb flower - Chive blossoms.  Chives can bloom as early as April in some places but generally show an abundance in early May in my Zone 5 garden.  I make chive flowers into vinegar. using the simple microwave technique.

To make herb vinegar, wash your fresh herbs thoroughly then allow to air dry. Use any type of vinegar with a 5% acidity.  Rice and wine vinegars are very popular, but distilled white works fine too. Place the herbs in a glass heat-resistant jar.  Pour vinegar over herbs to cover completely.  Using the handle of a wooden or plastic spoon bruise the herbs in the vinegar.  Then place jar in microwave for 2 minutes on high. Allow to cool and steep.

In about 2 weeks the vinegar starts to turn a lovely pink and picks up a light onionly flavor akin to chives.  It can then be used to make salad dressing and marinades.  I do sell the vinegar some years, but it is always gone in a hurry.

Vinegar Slaw

3 1/2 pounds green cabbage, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 very large Vidalia or other sweet onion (1 1/4 pounds), cut into 1-inch pieces

1 pound carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

3 celery ribs, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 cup sugar

1 cup chive blossom vinegar

3/4 cup peanut oil

1 teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 teaspoon celery seeds

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

Working in batches, pulse the vegetables in a food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to a large bowl and toss well. Stir in the sugar.

In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, oil, dry mustard, celery seeds and salt and bring to a boil. Pour the dressing over the slaw and toss well. Refrigerate overnight. Just before serving, drain the slaw and stir in the parsley.

Calendula

Marigolds brighten up the summer months and Pot Marigold, also known as Calendula is a wonderful annual to grow.  I plant them as an edging around evergreen beds as well as my rain garden and my vegetable gardens.  The flowers are bright, colorful and sunny and cannot help but lift your mood and they are totally edible.  You can use calendula petals to make this wonderful vegetable soup.

Marigold Soup

Adapted from Herbs through the Seasons at Caprilands by Adelma Simmons

8 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup brown rice, uncooked

1 cup celery, chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

2 medium potatoes scrubbed and diced

1 Tbls black peppercorns, crushed

2 cups fresh spinach, chopped

½ cup chives, chopped

½ cup chive flowers, torn and chopped

1 cup parsley, chopped
2 cups calendula flowers
1 cup young calendula leaves
1 Tbls lemon juice (or more to taste)
calendula petals or flower heads for garnish

Directions:
Combine chicken stock, rice, celery, onions, potatoes and crushed pepper in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes or until rice is just cooked.  Add spinach, chives, parsley and calendula flowers and leaves and cook 5 minutes more.  Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.  Garnish with fresh calendula.  Serve at once with a flower in each bowl.

Lavender

Lavender flowers arrive in late summer and give such great aroma of relaxation they tend to be used for potpourri and scented creams and lotions rather than for the savory qualities they bring to food.  They are an important part of a traditional herb blend called Herbs De Provence.  Herbs de Provence can be used to marinades, sauces and as a meat rub.

Simplified Herbs De Provence

Thyme
Rosemary
Bay
Fennel
Lavender buds

Combine dried herbs in equal amounts and store in a jar with a tight fitting lid.

Herbs de Provence Encrusted Pork Loin

3 1/2 lb. Center Cut Boneless Pork Loin

2 Tbls Herbs de Provence

2 Garlic Cloves, minced

3 Tbls Olive Oil

1 tsp Kosher Salt

1/2 tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 cup Chardonnay Wine (or any other dry white wine)

1 cup Fat Free Chicken Broth

1 Tbls Cornstarch

1 Tbls Cold Water

Directions

Encrusted Pork Loin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Allow meat to come to room temperature for 15 minutes prior to cooking; then trim any visible fat from your roast and place in a roasting pan; leaving any fat facing up. Combine the Herbs de Provence, garlic, oil, salt and pepper in a small bowl; then brush it on top of the meat. Add the wine and chicken broth to the bottom of the pan and bake until the minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees (approximately 1 1/2 hours for an internal temperature of 160 degrees; which is how we prefer ours cooked.) Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 15 minutes before slicing.

Chardonnay Pan Gravy

Remove the pan drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan and place in a small saucepan. Bring to a slight boil over high heat; then reduce heat to a simmer. Combine the cornstarch and cold water and whisk the mixture into the pan drippings. Stir constantly until the gravy has thickened; approximately 2-3 minutes. Serve over Pork Loin.

Rose

Roses are also a great savory for cooking.  You can extract the essence of the petals by making a rose water that can then be used to make cookies.

You can make your own quick rose water.  It has not long term shelf life, so use it up in 6 months and keep refrigerated.  But you can use as a bath splash and in these savory cookies while you have it on hand.

Quick Rose Water
from the Program Body Beautiful by Marcy Lautanen-Raleigh

1 cup firmly packed rose petals, washed

2 cups boiling water

Place rose petals in a ceramic or glass bowl.  Use only fresh petals (no leaves or stems).  Pour boiling water over petals, and allow to steep until cool.  Strain off the petals and pour the scented liquid into a clean bottle.

Directions for use: Splash on after bath or shower or use in any number of beauty recipes.  Will keep refrigerated for 6 months.

Rose Cookies
Adapted from Herbs through the Seasons at Caprilands by Adelma Simmons

1 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flower
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 Tbls rose water or 1 tsp rose syrup
2 Tbls caraway seeds
raisins for garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cream together butter and honey.  Add eggs and beat well.  Sift flours with baking soda and cream of tartar.  Add to the creamed mixture.  Stir in rose water or rose syrup and caraway seeds.  Drop mixture by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets.  Flatten slightly with a moistened finger and put a raisin in the center of each cookie.  Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Remove from cookie sheets and cool on a wire rack.  Make 8 dozen.

Art in the Herb Garden

Some days I go to the garden intent on photographing something I or my plants are doing.  Other days I am documenting the garden as it moves through seasons or a plant thought its life cycle.  And sometimes I just take pictures for the sake of taking pictures.  I do not have the most presition camera.  I am working onit, but darn if I spend my earnings on somthing to read or something to grow and neverhave enough left to upgrade my camera.

However, sometimes my camera surprises me and gives me a great image.  Today was one of those days.  I was documenting seeds for an upcoming blog on seed gathering.  While I was doing this I realized the zinnias and the black eyed susan's were still blooming so I snapped a few images.

I thought you might like to see them....

Coneflower with unique red kissed petals

End of season Nasturtiums still have it!

Marigolds

Purple Zinnia

Dew on the leaves

This coneflower even has a cucumber beetle. 

 Back to business tomorrow maybe!  Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Scented marigolds - Herb of the Week

The heat has not bothered the Scented marigolds, which makes them the perfect herb of the week!

Yesterday I got out to the garden for the first time since last week. and to my great surprise the border planting of scented marigolds has popped into bloom.  We've finally had some rain and not quite so scorching of heat.

Don't they look beautiful?  And with the backdrop of my Lemon Basil they accent as a border.  My production garden does not always have the luxury of being "pretty," but yesterday it surely was!

The Tagetes family is a great selection of flavored marigolds that grow much better in zone 7 and above than they do here in zone 5, but I love to grow them as an annual.  (These are not your traditional French or African Marigolds - known as Tagetes patula.)

What I mean to speak about today are the scented (also called flavored) marigolds.  The flowers are small and the leaves and flowers are strongly scented and very tasty.  They fall into the category of edible flowers (which you can check out in a former blog post here.)

The marigolds I want to talk about have several names.  In zone 5 they grow wonderfully well as an annual and can be grown from seed.  When you scatter them like I did they bloom in July, if you start them indoors they start blooming in June and they are a continuous bloomer that will decorate for the rest of the season.

 Here are the various scented varieties:

Tagetes lucida - The species Tagetes lucida, known as "pericón," is used to prepare a sweetish, anise flavored medicinal tea in Mexico. It is also used as a culinary herb in many warm climates, as a substitute for tarragon, and offered in the nursery as "Texas tarragon" or "Mexican mint marigold" (Tagetes erecta).

Tagetes minuta, native to southern South America is a tall upright marigold plant with small flowers, and is used as a culinary herb in Peru, Ecuador, and parts of Chile and Bolivia, where it is called by the Incan term huacatay. Huacatay paste is used to make the popular potato dish called ocopa. The taste and odor of fresh Tagetes minuta is like a mixture of sweet basil, tarragon, mint and citrus. It is also used as a medicinal tea in some areas.  I have never tied growing this one, but Lemon Verbena Lady has grown it.

I love the lemon and tangerine flavored the most.  I got hooked on them when I found the Lemon Gem at the Friends of the Oak Park Conservatory herb sale my very first year.  I bought them there for over a decade before they stopped carrying them.  If you are a seed saver, marigold seed is easy to collected and save so you can repeat the crop year after year.

Tagetes Lemmonii

Tagetes tenuifolia - lemon gem

Tagetes lemmonii  leaves are truly lemon scented. I like to put them on the border because when you brush past, you release the scent. Even a slight breeze will bring the scent wafting into my apartment from the potted ones on the patio.

Tagetes tenuifolia - Comes in two varieties, Lemon Gem marigold producing lemon-yellow flower heads and its sister Tangerine Gem with that hint of orange scent and pinkish orange flowers. Both are a natural insect repellant for herb and vegetable gardens. There are bushy dwarf marigolds that look great in a rock garden or in a border. Blooms are incredibly profuse on low-growing mounds of scented foliage. The petite, single blossoms of lemon and tangerine taste as good at the name suggests!

According to some I have read these plants can grow to 4 to 5 feet in perfect conditions in Arizona and TX, but here in the north they stay closer to 6 to 10 inches making them perfect for borders and pots.



Here are both Lemon Gem and Tangarine Gem at the Chicago Botanic Garden

To Grow

T. tenuifolia, which has 8-inch mounds of lacy, citrus-scented leaves and ½-inch red, orange, or yellow single flowers need only warmth to grow quickly. Sow seed indoors a few weeks before the last frost or direct-seed when the soil is warm. Give them full sun in average soil and moisture for best results, but don’t worry if the soil is poor or dry. Excess fertility may promote lush growth, few flowers, and soft stems, especially in the tall cultivars, which then need to be staked. Wash spider mites off with regular, strong hosings or control with soap spray. Remove spent flowers regularly to encourage more blooms.

To Use

Make a paste by mashing the flowers and a few leaves in a mortar and pestle with a few drops of oil.  Then use the paste to color the sauce in Ocopa.  My husband did his archaeology fieldwork outside Arequipa Peru where these flowers grow well and this dish is popular.  Called Ocopa Arequipena, the dish has some similarities to Papas a la Huancaina. It consists of boiled and sliced yellow potatoes covered with a sauce of made of aji (chili pepper), walnuts, a Peruvian herb called "Huatacay" (that gives it a vivid color), fresh or white cheese, sided with lettuce, boiled eggs and olives. It is usually served in restaurants specializing in Peruvian Food or restaurants serving food from Arequipa, a southern Peruvian City. 

Ocopa (serves 4)

• 3 chilies mirasol
• 1/2 cup ground walnuts
• 6 oz. farmer's cheese
• a maceration of scented geramiun leaves or flowers (first choice Tagetes minuta but you can substitute Tagetes tenuifolia)
• 1/2 cup oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2 lbs. yellow potatoes cooked, halved

Directions:

1. Remove seeds from the chilies and let soak in water overnight.

2. Put in the blender the chilies, walnuts, cheese and oil. Liquify until a smooth sauce. Season with geranium leaves, salt and pepper.

3. Place the potatoes in a serving dish. Cover with the sauce and garnish with lettuce leaves.

You can also use scented marigold flowers in any dish where edible flowers are used, including cream cheese spreads and salads.  See the blog entry on Nasturtiums for some recipes you can substitute Scented Marigolds.