I love this recipe for courgette or zucchini flowers because you bake the flowers rather than frying them and they nestle in a bed of really tasty rice. 8 baby courgettes, with flowers 4 sprigs of fresh mint 150 g fresh or frozen peas 100 g labneh or other soft cheese 50 g hard cheese (optional) 1 lemon 400 g ripe cherry tomatoes 4 spring onions 8 black olives 1 fresh red chilli 2 cloves of garlic olive oil red wine vinegar 300 g basmati rice Put the mint leaves, peas and … [Read more...]
Tomato & Rose Petal Harissa Recipe
Tomato & Rose Petal Harissa sounded like a fascinating recipe and when my friend Darja said that she couldn't find any for a recipe she wanted to make, I thought I would try making some. I had some rose petals from my rugosa rose (it has edible rose hips), ripe tomatoes ready to use and some chillies in the freezer. This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver - the original uses smoked paprika but I find the smokey flavour too overpowering for my taste and now make the recipe using sweet … [Read more...]
Quesadillas with Courgette Flowers
There is a special synchronicity when many of your passions coincide. This recipe for Quesadillas with Courgette Flowers brings together my interests in travelling and experiencing different cultures, growing my own fruits and vegetables, cooking fresh tasty food straight from the garden and enjoying my backyard haven. I was reading Rick Stein's book "The Road to Mexico" and reminiscing about my trip to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize 3 years ago, whilst sitting in my new outdoor area enjoying a … [Read more...]
Lavender Shortbread Recipe
This Lavender Shortbread Recipe is very simple, has a delicious flavour and is perfect to give as a gift. The biscuits (or the dough) can be kept in the freezer for when you need a little something to give to someone. You can experiment with different shaped cookie cutters if you want or use a letter press to stamp words into your shortbread as I did. Ingredients 250 g butter 3/4 cup icing sugar 2 tablespoons of finely chopped dried or fresh lavender flowers 2 cups flour pinch of … [Read more...]
Natural Calendula Antiseptic Cream Recipe
This recipe for a Natural Calendula Antiseptic Cream uses more natural ingredients than the simple Calendula Cream recipe made with Vaseline petroleum jelly that I described in an earlier post. You can make little jars for kids so that they can put "Owie Cream" on their cuts and scrapes or to tuck into your day pack if you are heading out into the Great Outdoors or travelling. It would make a great gift for the travellers or hikers in your life. Calendula flowers have bee used by many ancient … [Read more...]
Calendula Antiseptic Cream
Since I started planting lots more herbs and flowers in my garden to attract the bees, I have been getting a lot more interested in what else you can do with them (see bottom of page for some of my earlier posts). When my friend Steph told me that she makes an antiseptic cream using calendula flowers from her garden, I just had to give it a try. Calendula flowers have bee used by many ancient cultures for their healing powers and natural abilities to soothe dry and irritated skin. … [Read more...]
Preserving Edible Flowers
In an earlier post I wrote about all the wonderful edible flowers you could use to add fun and flavour to your meals. As well as using them fresh there are all sorts of ways of preserving them: best known are of course crystallising them or freezing in ice cubes but you can also pickle the petals and you can use the seed pods of nasturtium to make poor man's capers. Freezing in Ice Cubes This doesn't really need any instruction: pick and wash your flowers; put into ice cube trays and fill … [Read more...]
Crispy Zucchini Flowers Stuffed with Herbed Ricotta
Although I had previously tried a boiled stuffed zucchini flower recipe because I wasn't that keen on deep frying, I had to try this recipe just once to see what the fuss was about. And it was delicious so I might do it again for a special occasion (or keep my eye out for where someone else will do it for me). This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver to fit with what I had in the garden. 4 zucchini flowers, with baby zucchini still attached 100-200g Ricotta cheese, preferably home-made … [Read more...]
Stuffed Zucchini Flowers
With my recent interest in edible flowers and a couple of very productive zucchini plants, I just had to have a go with stuffed zucchini flowers. Many of the recipes are deep fried, but this boiled one caught my eye. Of course getting enough flowers all at the same time was a problem but I reduced the recipe down to what I was able to harvest at once. The flowers certainly make a different and colourful presentation and the stuffing was very tasty (if a little fiddly). 8 zucchini … [Read more...]
Use Edible Flowers to add Fun and Flavour
Now that I have planted lots of herbs and flowering plants that are bee-friendly, I have started to investigate what I can do with all these different plants. There are the more obvious ones that are used regularly in cooking, some that make lovely scented cut flowers, and others that can be dried and used in bath and beauty products. I knew that some were edible and occasionally appeared as a garnish on dishes, but I had no idea that so many flowers were in fact edible. You can use them in … [Read more...]