Spruce Up Your Recipes With Beauty - Cooking With Flowers

Cooking with flowers means bouquets so good you can eat added to your meals. Edible flowers add a lot of beauty and flavour to any recipe. Using edible flowers are easy to incorporate into your favourite dishes such as soups, desserts, and even your main savoury dishes. Edible flowers can be pretty tasty treats.

Of course not all flowers are edible but there are a great many that are and they do make lovely additions to your cooking adding a decorative flair and taste. Soups are especially beautiful when there is an edible flower floating on top. Flowers are not just pretty but they do add nutrients to the food besides flavours. The next time you are planning a special meal remember to buy the edible flowers along with the ingredients to your recipes.

The best flowers to use are the ones that have been grown without the use of pesticides. Let your florist know you are planning to use the flowers in your recipes and ask for their guidance. Be sure to clean these flowers thoroughly before using them like you would with any vegetable.

In general, adding the sweeter flowers to your dishes is both easy and effective. These are petals of carnations, the blossoms of the apple or citrus fruit trees and violets. For any main dish recipe, you can use herbs and broccoli florets. The vegetable that have flowers that are good for eating are broccoli, male squash flowers, okra and arugula. The arugula blossoms have a horseradish kind of taste. The entire fennel plant is good for cooking with the tiny flowers much like aniseed and this pairs well with salmon.

To add freshness to any of your recipes you can always add in herbal flowers. The leaves of the herbs produce edible flowers like dill, dandelion, basil, lavender, rosemary, mint, thyme, chives and sage. The flowers of the herbs can be preserved in oil for cooking and the lavender makes a sugar that is an amazing sweetener for cookies, jelly and tea. Rosemary has tiny buds that work really well in meat dishes or salads. The flowers of the dill go well in omelets while the buttery flavour and look of the dandelion flowers have a peppery kick to them once eaten. The flowers of the chive are a crunchy addition to salads and the flavour is that of a mild onion.

The ornamental flowers that are edible are pansies, calendula, day lilies, hollyhock, chamomile, impatiens, bergamot, , chrysanthemum, nasturtiums, violets, tulips, violas and scented geraniums.

The flowers of hollyhocks can be crystallized for using in desserts or garnish. Savoury dishes like omelettes, breads, souffls, and rice all go well with calendula. Guacamole and cheese is a good paring for the sweet and peppery flavour of the nasturtiums. If you like asparagus then you will enjoy using daylilies in your stir-fry or soup dishes.

Edible flowers from trees include apple, hibiscus, honeysuckle, roses, lilacs, plum, pear, and peach. Rose petals can be crystallized and then made into jellies or jams. Of course, edible roses are wonderful for decorating cakes. No matter what flower you choose to add to your recipes, it is always the best idea to buy from a reputable dealer who can give you expert advice.

Adam Fowler’s team at ModeFlowers.com is dedicated to providing service of the highest quality to all their customers. Visit ModeFlowers.com today!