Time to Stop and Eat the Flowers

Some people prefer to grow flowers and some people prefer to grow good things to eat, but me, I like to do both at once. Edible flower gardening. Here are four good reasons to eat flowers: Flowers are pretty. We already put flowers on the table – in a vase – so imagine how extra pretty they are atop a salad bowl or a dinner plate. Flowers

Zucchini Quiche with Flower Power

 

Those who follow my blog may know that zucchini is my favourite summer vegetable:
5) it grows without fail in my garden in Saskatchewan
4) the flowers are big and sunny
3) it produces a ton of zucchini (well, a slight exaggeration)
2) it can be cooked in so many different ways (such as this simple quiche recipe)
1) the flowers are edible, too!

Zucchini Quiche
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp basil, finely chopped
1 tbsp other mixed herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano)
2 medium zucchini, cut in rounds and quartered
1/4 cup chopped orach (or spinach)
Parmesan cheese, about 1/2 inch (1 cm) square
Cheddar cheese, about 1 inch (2 cm) square
1 pie crust in a tarte pan
5 eggs
Salt & pepper
8-10 johnny-jump-up flowers

Heat the butter in a skillet. Sauté the onion and herbs until soft. Add the zucchini and orach. Cook a few more minutes, until the zucchini is just tender.

Meanwhile, grate the cheese and spread evenly in the pie crust.

Crack the eggs into a bowl. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. Stir in the zucchini mixture. Pour over the cheese. Dot with the flowers, pressing each one lightly into the egg.

Bake at 375F for 25-30 minutes, until the centre of the quiche is set and the pastry is lightly brown.

More zucchini flowers to eat!

As you may know, zucchini flowers are one of the culinary highlights of my summer. My friend Darlene, who summers in the Bordeaux region of France, inspired me to try them this way:

Make a stuffing of ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, chopped basil, bread crumbs and a dash of salt. Scoop a bit into each flower and twist the petals to seal. Froth one egg with a fork. Roll the flowers in the egg wash then coat lightly with flour seasoned with a bit more salt. Fry in hot vegetable oil. Eat warm, like a summer day.

I like this method better than battering the flowers, which is how I've done it in the past. Also, the addition of ricotta cheese made a creamier filling. I'm ready to try this again - thank goodness there's no shortage of zucchini flowers!

Additional note: I made these for a friend who cannot eat gluten -- left out the bread crumbs and rolled them in chickpea flour before frying.

Deep Fried Zucchini Flowers

I love eating flowers. Just the idea of it makes me smile. I especially love eating flowers that have a tiny baby zucchini attached!

 

Zucchini flowers are just the right size for a filling of: fresh bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and chopped basil. Twist the flower ends to hold in the filling. Roll the flowers through a batter of: chickpea flour, baking soda, water and salt. Fry in hot vegetable oil until brown on both sides. Remove to paper towel and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Eat warm and smile. :)

The great thing about zucchini is they're always making more flowers!

One person's weeds...

...is another person's dinner.

I did a bit of weeding at the community garden and made this "weed" fritatta for dinner. It includes orach, sunflower seedlings, dandelion leaves and johnny-jump-ups, all of which grow like weeds if unchecked. My gardening friend Karen has a carpet of fuscia-coloured orach in her garden. It was my first encounter and I must say, it is delicious. I'll be nipping back to her garden for more. Here's a closeup of the fritatta -- pretty as a piece of art!


















Weed Fritatta
8 eggs
a generous pinch of dried thyme
salt and pepper
2 handfulls of small tender weeds plus some baby spinach
12-15 johnny-jump-up flowers
a bit of butter

Scramble the eggs in a bowl with the thyme, salt and pepper. Gently stir in the baby weeds. Do not add johnny-jump-ups at this point.

Heat a non-stick skillet on medium heat. Melt a bit of butter and swirl it around. Pour in the egg mixture. Place the flowers decoratively on top, pressing gently. As the eggs solidify, lift the cooked edges and tip the pan so the liquid egg runs under the fritatta.

When the egg is cooked on the bottom but still jiggly in the middle, place the skillet under the brioler and cook until the egg is just set. Allow to cool slightly before cutting and serving.

Local Bounty II

The second Local Bounty conference was held this past weekend in Saskatoon bringing chefs and farmers together to share their passion for locally-produced food.

Guest speaker was Chef Wade Sirois of Calgary's Forage - Farm to Fork Foods to Go, a catering and take-away service that focusses on fresh farm food. I love his motto: Food you know from people you know. Wade blogged about his trip to Saskatoon and confesses he was blow away by the local food scene.

In particular, he raves about the lunch buffet served by Executive Chef Anthony McCarthy, which was truly spectacular -- proof that local chefs have absolutely no fear in producing a gourmet meal based on the bounty of Saskatchewan.

As for that local bounty, a few new products came onto my radar:

Fresh Air Flavours of Nipawin isn't exactly new, but owner Julie Remple has created smart new labels for her line of savoury jams and pesto. She gave me some samples and I'm really enjoying them.

Bedard Creek Acres is producing a line of syrups made with flowers and herds from their farm at Choiceland. Imagine pouring Red Clover Blossom Syrup on your French toast. Recipes on the website include ideas for using it with salmon, ham and even burritos.

There's a new CSA at Aberdeen. CSA stand for Community Supported Agriculture -- The idea is that consumers buy into the product up front and pledge to purchase a certain amount of the harvest. The CSA at Fruition Orchard is offering fruit, berries, tomatoes and honey.

Another exciting development is a new restaurant soon to open in Saskatoon. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to publicize it yet, so let this be a tease.... Watch here for details!

Stop and smell - er- eat the flowers STUFFED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS

This article first appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix on 27 August 2007.

Summer is not over yet, so there’s still time to stop and eat the flowers. That’s right – some flowers are just as lovely on the palate as on the nose. Just imagine, if they look pretty in the garden, how charming flowers can be in a salad, sprinkled on strawberry shortcake or stirred into a sauce.

Take, for instance, those little carnations called pinks. Recently, I made devilled eggs for a backyard party and topped each one with a pretty pink. It turned an ordinary appetizer into a conversation piece. I also throw pinks into green salads, along with tiny tangerine marigolds, peppery nasturtiums and beautiful blue borage flowers. Perhaps the radishes and arugula in your garden are past their prime? You can get a second harvest from them – a harvest of flowers. In fact, the flowers of many herbs and vegetables are edible, such as the flowers of basil, scarlet runner beans and summer squash.

A couple of summers ago, I ventured into the Nesbit Forest south of Prince Albert to pick wild rose petals with Marie Symes-Grehan, who turns them into lovely pink jellies and syrups. We picked the rose petals in the morning, after the dew had lifted, dropping them into soft cotton bags and later, we sorted out the leaves and broken petals on Marie’s big kitchen table. That evening, she made a batch of jelly full of suspended pink petals. Marie sells her syrups and conserves under the label Lily Plain Summer, which are particularly popular at the Granville Island Market in Vancouver. (http://www.lilyplain.com/).

Rose petals have a long tradition in Middle Eastern cuisine for flavouring syrups and pastries. Edible flowers were also popular in Victorian times but fell out of favour until now, when they’re making a comeback on swank dinner tables from London to L.A. The list of edible flowers includes some popular garden varieties such as pansies, day lilies, roses and tulips, this latter described on one website as tasting of “sweet lettuce, fresh baby peas.” A word of caution: Not all flowers taste good and some are not good for you. Please do your own research before experimenting with edible flowers, and never eat a flower from a flower shop or one that may have been sprayed with a chemical.

My favourite culinary flower is the zucchini. In Mediterranean cuisine, they may be stuffed and deep-fried, laid decoratively on top of a quiche or stirred into risotto. Pick them in the morning when they’re open so it’s easier to remove the stamen or pistil inside the flower. Sometimes, I pick baby zucchini when the flower is still attached and cook them together. This also cuts down on the number of giant zucchini to contend with later. As always, I try as much as possible, to set my table with the foods of Saskatchewan and that includes flowers – both in a vase and on my plate.

DEEP FRIED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS
1 slice good dry bread
1 cup milk
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
Fat 1/2 cup water
Scant 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 zucchini flowers
Canola oil

Cut the crusts off the bread and tear it into small pieces. Cover the bread with milk and soak 30 minutes. Drain and discard the milk, squeeze out the bread and mix it with the basil and cheese.
Meanwhile, stir together the water, flour, baking powder and salt. Add more water if needed to reach the consistency of a thin pancake batter. Let sit 30 minutes.
Carefully spoon a bit of the bread mixture into each flower. Twist the tips of the flower to close.
Heat the oil on medium high. Use enough oil so the flowers will float and not stick to the bottom of the pan. When the oil is shimmering, roll the flowers in the batter, drain excess and drop into the oil. Do this in batches so the flowers don’t stick together. Brown on both sides and remove to a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy.

Take time to eat the flowers - DEVILED EGGS

Someone said my deviled eggs are 'retro'. Well, I know my mom never made them with flowers on top! Top your favourite deviled eggs with bachelor buttons or try this recipe (adapted from Saveur June/July 2004).

HEAVENLY DEVILED EGGS

6 hardboiled eggs

1/4 cup mashed potatoes

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp homemade relish

2 tbsp mayonaise

1 tbsp mustard

Peel the eggs, cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the yolks. Mash the yolks with the rest of the ingredients. Spoon the filling onto the hardboiled eggs, covering the cut side of the eggs and pressing down with the tines of a fork. Garnish with bachelor buttons. (Blue borage flowers or tangerine marigolds would be nice, too.).

Take time to eat the flowers - ZUCCHINI EGG PIE

My husband and I had only one prenuptual agreement - that I would never grow more than six zucchinis at a time. Here's a great way to use up that prolific zucchini and prevent even more by eating the flowers! Europeans have a long tradition of eating zucchini flowers - stuffed, deep fried, baked - this is a good way to introduce zucchini flowers to your Saskatchewan dinner table because it's more decorative than culinary. It's best to pick the zucchini when young and tender and the flowers when wide open first thing in the morning.

ZUCCHINI PIE
2 tbsp canola oil
½ onion, finely chopped
½ cup mixed herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano, etc.)
1 cup zucchini, grated
10 eggs
3 tbsp cream
½ tsp salt and a few grinds of pepper
1 cup grated cheese (such as cheddar, mozzarella, Swiss, etc.)
2 open zucchini flowers
1 pie crust

Heat the oil in a skillet. Sauté the onion until soft. Add the herbs and zucchini; cook until the zucchini is just warm and wilted. Remove from heat.

Whip the eggs with the cream until frothy. Season with salt and pepper. Cut the zucchini flowers into two halves and remove the stamen/pistil.

Spread the zucchini and herb mixture in the pie crust. Top with the grated cheese. Pour the whipped eggs on top to cover. Arrange the zucchini flowers on top, pressing lightly into the egg. Bake for 30 minutes at 375F. The pie is done when a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.