Eat what you grow: the lowdown on edible flowers

The same colours that flowers bring to your garden can be enjoyed at the table if you open your kitchen to edible flowers.

It's best to grow your own edible flowers because flowers raised for the florist trade often contain toxic pesticide residues. Here are some tips on what you can eat.

In addition to their fruits, zucchini and other types of squash provide edible blossoms.

• Fry the flowers in batter, tempura-style, or lightly sauté them.
• You can also use squash blossoms as wrappers for cold salads or cut them into thin strips and toss them with hot pasta.
• Some people find the longer-stemmed male flowers more flavourful, and they are certainly more abundant.
• In the first weeks that a squash plant is in bloom, most of the blossoms are male.

Pick edible flowers just before you're ready to use them. They will not have wilted and their flavour will be at its most intense. Harvested blooms can be loosely wrapped in dampened paper towels and kept in the refrigerator for about a day.

• Garnish fruit salad, sorbet or finger sandwiches with sage, rose, violet or pansy blossoms.
• Mix rose petals, mint flowers or violets into cake batter or cookie dough.
• Toss some blossoms from nasturtium, basil or mustard plants with your favourite salad greens.
• Freeze flower petals or small blossoms in ice cubes and enjoy them in cold drinks or float them in a bowl of party punch.

Add spicy tuberous begonia petals to yogurt or ice cream. Include several different colours for an especially festive presentation.

Let calendulas stand in for saffron. Yellow calendulas, sometimes called pot marigolds, don't have the savoury flavour of saffron, but a few chopped petals sprinkled into rice as it cooks will impart the same rich yellow colour. Use a light hand because too much calendula can taste bitter.

Some edible flowers look better than they taste.

• Chrysanthemum petals, for example, are a beautiful garnish and quite safe to eat, but they won't win any contests in the flavour department.
• With sunflowers and dianthus, the petal tips can be used to add colour to a huge range of foods, but the bases of the petals, where they attach to the blossom's centre, often taste bitter.

• Try thin shreds of yellow or orange tulip petals in a dark green spinach salad. Or use them to line a plate of stuffed mushrooms.
• Daylily blossoms are surprisingly tasty, with a slightly sweet, floral flavour. Be sure to snip out the stamens before preparing daylily blossoms for the table. You can also eat daylily buds that are almost ready to open. The blossoms are good when tossed with buttered pasta and Parmesan cheese, or you can cut them into strips and add them to any salad.
• Use nasturtium blossoms to garnish cold summer soups. Nasturtium flowers have a peppery flavour, which is a welcome touch with chilled potato, cucumber or carrot soup.

1. To make candied flowers, pick violets, pansies or nasturtiums with short stems attached; quickly rinse and pat dry.
2. In a small bowl, beat an egg white until frothy, then mix in 30 grams (two tablespoons) of superfine (not confectioner's) sugar.
3. Hold the blossom by the stem as you paint the mixture onto both sides of the petals. Let them dry on a baking rack in the refrigerator.
4. When you're ready to use them, snip off the stem then set each blossom in place.

--------------------

Discover the smarter way to save time and money

Ready to start saving more on your groceries and pharmacy purchases? Download the FREE YP Grocery app today! It lets you create shareable shopping lists, automatically finds all the best deals and coupons, then delivers them right to you. No more manually scrolling through hundreds of flyers to find what you’re looking for!

Download the YP Grocery app now!