Know Your Ingredients and Tools

The world of edible flowers is an untapped culinary experience for the everyday home cook, but it is as easy as stepping outside the box and talking a stroll outside in your organic garden.

Edible flowers come in the form of flowering herbs, such as the ones that form on chives or squash flowers that are absolutely divine. These are especially good when sauteed or even your colorful accents such as the ones that vibrantly grace the flowering landscape, like sunflowers, nasturtiums or even pansies.

If you plan to explore these hidden culinary delicacies, a word of caution: make sure they are not treated with any type of chemical. What this means is, to be on the safe side, grow them organically yourself! Typically you will want to grow them from seeds and use the organic variety to insure safety for the table.

Whole flowers as well as individual petals can add a nice compliment to sweet or savory dishes or even beverages. In particular I love using lavender flowers for cookies or for a refreshing summer tea. Mint blossoms make a nice addition to salads or even some of your more adventurous meat dishes.

Here are a couple of tips for harvesting and cooking with blossoms:

  1. Harvest blossoms or flowers at their peek and use within a day or two of harvesting.
  2. To store blossoms, wrap in a dry paper towel and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.
  3. Snip away any stems and use the blossoms only, when preparing salads or cooked dishes.
  4. If using for iced beverages, steep in an organic simple syrup for maximum flavor. Remove the blossoms once the simple syrup has been completed. Garnish the beverage with fresh blossoms as a nice accessory.
  5. If you decide to purchase your edibles, go online to find a local market such as Wegman's and Whole Food to check for availability.
  6. Try experimenting by growing a few edibles in pots if you are not quite ready to begin with an in-ground garden.

Enjoy!