Wednesday, May 20, 2015

In the Garden - Spring Edible Flowers

We love the abundance of spring flowers in the garden and we love to use edible flowers in the tea room.  It makes an ordinary dish extraordinary and offers a great element of both surprise and delight. Tulips make the most wonderful bowls for Chicken Salad or Egg Salad. We pull out the pithy center not because it isn't edible but because it is too chewy.
Violets can be used to make jelly or syrup and are actually quite nutritious. Sometimes we float one in the water glasses.  Or top a tartlet with one. We love the contrast in color with the purple violet against golden yellow lemon curd.
Lilacs are a mouthful of flower so we often pull them apart and use the petals in a tossed salad for a little extra pizazz.
Little grape hyacinths are harbingers of spring and are here and gone before you know it but not before we can use those tiny flowers in some rice for just a touch of color.

1 comment:

Marilyn Miller said...

Oh I just love eatable flowers. For some reason I didn't know about the grape hyacinths or the lilac.