Here's how I created a salad from edible flowers grown from seed. The flowers I'm adding are red and gold nasturtium, bright orange calendula, daisy-like German chamomile, multi-coloured Swiss pansies, yellow California poppies, little white sweet alyssum and blue cornflowers.
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00:00Good morning, today I'm going to make a 7 flower salad from some of the flowers I've
00:12been growing from seed, some of the leaves as well, and then I'm going to make a wee
00:17dressing from herbs and a bit of olive oil and throw it all together, it should look
00:23very colourful and we'll see how it turns out.
00:27So some of the flowers I'll be using for this are pansies, nasturtiums, calendula, sweet
00:35dillicium, which are all here at the front and back and I'll just get picking a few now.
00:57There's some white, this is what I've got so far.
01:27What I'm also going to do is pick some leaves for the salad here and I'm just going to go
01:33for the calendula and the nasturtium which are both edible.
01:56So what I'm going to do here is just lay out what I have so far from the front garden
02:00and just if there's any paper crawlers I can crawl out from them and just show you the
02:06different colours here.
02:08So these are the leaves, these are nasturtium leaves, some of them are variegated, some
02:15of them are just single coloured and these are the calendula leaves and we'll also be
02:21getting some watercress in a minute.
02:24We'll go back in and we'll plant the base of the salad.
02:30It's incredible how many flowers are actually edible.
02:48I put a reward on there that not everything is so you want to do a bit of research first
02:57because there's quite a lot that wouldn't be edible and could be quite dangerous if
03:02you don't know what you're doing.
03:05I'm just going to leave these out here for a minute.
03:10So we're at the back now and I'm going to be picking the rest of the flowers I need.
03:19So first up we get some cornflower.
03:49Here's some cornflower and then California poppies.
04:03The little poppies will have one more flower to get which will be chamomile up the back
04:10here.
04:11I'll just take it up.
04:13Here we have a wee chamomile patch.
04:30Got a couple of gooseberries there but we also need some strawberries down here.
04:43There's some nice ripe strawberries here as you can see.
05:01Plenty of strawberries there today.
05:04So that is everything right here and then we just need to get
05:10some watercress for the salad.
05:15Just get these laid out here as well.
05:21And the salad base and then
05:26so
05:29we get our poppies,
05:32our cornflowers,
05:35and our strawberries can go straight under the water here along with the gooseberries.
05:41Just
05:46wash off anything that's on them.
05:50Be careful to leave out any pesticides if your pot flowers stick.
05:58You don't want
06:01to be eating any of that.
06:06It's very much for
06:09these California poppies.
06:13So we'll just leave all of these out here a second.
06:16And then cornflowers.
06:21We don't have cornflowers in a bottle at the moment so
06:25we're not quite there yet.
06:28I'm just going to give this a rinse.
06:35There we have our 7 flowers and our leaves for the dressing.
06:39I'm just using a little bit of olive oil.
06:46Olive oil is
06:49this is lemon balm
06:52which smells very citrusy
06:55but grows quite well here.
06:58It's related to the month, I think.
07:00So I'm just going to dump that in water, I think.
07:03And then just swish it in there.
07:08And save a little bit.
07:09I'll just run a sieve out first.
07:13Here's a water bowl.
07:25And a sieve.
07:43And this smells so strong already.
07:45This is the month.
07:49I don't know what this will taste like.
07:51I've never made anything like this before.
07:56So month, lemon.
08:00What else do we have?
08:01We have some marjoram for dressing as well.
08:05In here.
08:07This is related to oregano.
08:14Just breaking that up to release the oils on the olive oil.
08:21And these are all edible.
08:22I know it's edible, I know it's edible.
08:23You can just leave any stalks.
08:26Throw them under the salad to give it a kick of flavour.
08:31The leaves are all going to do it.
08:36Over here we've got three types of leaves.
08:38We've got nasturtium, which are a bit peppery.
08:42Like a cranberry.
08:44And watercress.
08:49I've got all these from a sieve as well.
08:52And then we have fruit here.
08:57There's the gooseberries and strawberries, which I can now bring out.
09:01I'll just get rid of this stuff first.
09:06Just get the fruit out now.
09:09Some paper towels.
09:11Oops, I lost something there.
09:18But that's OK.
09:25Now we have the salad leaves here.
09:31The fruit dried up.
09:33It's time to wash them a couple of times.
09:36Just throw them all in there.
09:38Now we put a tiny wee bit of salt at the bottom of this.
09:42And then just throw these in there.
09:51Just about any flies you want on them.
09:53They come off before you do this.
09:57You can leave that in the kitchen toilet, in the garden,
09:59and that sort of food can make their way back to the plants.
10:09So that's them.
10:13And I'll just show you here now.
10:17This one is submerging right now.
10:26I'll come back for another two.
10:33Now these have been soaking for a couple of minutes.
10:39I'm just going to place them out here.
10:42And start taking the petals and the wee bits like this off.
10:48So that you're not getting the hard bits on this all.
10:54And start assembling it then.
10:57So before I started assembling all this,
11:00I thought it would be a good idea to try it.
11:02See what it tastes like.
11:04So I'll grab a petal here.
11:06This is a pomegranate.
11:12Quite filthy.
11:16That's quite nice actually.
11:18It's got a lot of seeds in it.
11:20It's got a lot of seeds in it.
11:23That's quite nice actually.
11:25It's got a lot of seeds in it.
11:33This is nasturtium.
11:35Nice flower here.
11:41Let's put that stuff in that pet right there.
11:48That's the cornflower.
11:50Cornflower.
11:52Small blue flowers.
11:58Not much here.
12:02But I think these sweet lilies seem to have given a honey flavour to a lot of things in all these.
12:12Yep, I think that's what I can taste from the pandes.
12:17And the rest of vanilla.
12:21So I'll just cut those off.
12:24These orange flowers here.
12:27Put the petal off.
12:39They're nice.
12:43I hadn't expected things to have their own flavour, but they do.
12:48Can't really describe it.
12:50It's mild, but it's distinctive from the others.
12:57What else do we have here?
12:59California poppy.
13:01What have we got here?
13:03Let's see.
13:16Doesn't really taste that much.
13:20Finally we have...
13:22I think we've been eating chamomile.
13:25Now, I've grown a patch of these in my chamomile tea as well.
13:29So there's all sorts of things you can do with the flowers in the garden.
13:35They're probably the most flavoursome of all.
13:42Yep, they're a really deep flavour.
13:47Not unpleasant, but not a bit more bitter or herby.
13:54So, let's try the leaves now.
13:57These are nasturtium leaves.
14:00They're brown, palm-like leaves.
14:12I haven't got a whole bunch of taste off them.
14:15These are the...
14:18...cress.
14:19Buttercress.
14:25Buttercress.
14:38A wee bit of pepper, I think.
14:40There's a bit of spice going on here, most of these things.
14:43This is calendula.
14:45I know these are supposed to be red butter.
14:55They're okay.
14:57A different texture.
14:59I'm just going to tear some of these up now.
15:06There's a mint here.
15:12There's some lemon balm that was...
15:15...supposed to be in the dressing.
15:17Supposed to be in the dressing.
15:22They're a little hard, so I'll just remove them.
15:29Just want the leaves, really.
15:31I'm going to go into the restaurant and get some of that over.
16:01There we go.
16:03There we go.
16:05There we go.
16:31That's our base there.
16:33I'm going to just...
16:37...mix in the dressing before I add the...
16:40...flours.
16:44So a minute ago I mixed in some mint,
16:46some lemon balm and some margarine.
16:49And with some olive oil.
16:51So I'm going to throw that on top of the...
16:53...leafy greens.
17:03Some margarine.
17:13Just bring it in closer now.
17:27It's time now to add the flours.
17:29The flours...
17:33...will leave the fruit to the last bit.
17:35So I'm just going to pull off...
17:37...well these, now the pansies you can actually...
17:39...try and put in a hole.
17:41It doesn't work, but...
17:43...I just don't want the wee hard bits at the back.
17:59There we go.
18:15Already you can see...
18:17...it's becoming more colourful.
18:21Just with a couple added.
18:23And tear off the...
18:25...cones of the petals.
18:27People use these for all sorts.
18:29For balms, for...
18:31...baking, for...
18:33...breading up dinners and stuff.
18:35You can put them on the cooked food.
18:37Here's one in this station.
18:39A few different colours in this station here.
18:43There's a yellow...
18:45...sort of rust colour.
18:47Again, just pulling that...
18:49...flour out of the...
18:51...casing.
18:57That whole plant's edible, so that's fine.
19:01And...
19:03...a more Californian palace.
19:07I'm going to pull back here.
19:09It's showing blue.
19:17Deep blue.
19:27Now I'm using these in a salad.
19:29You can use them in all sorts of things.
19:31I see people use them to decorate...
19:33...cocktails.
19:35Fancy cocktail bars and things like that.
19:39You can use them in desserts.
19:41A lot of people put them on top of cakes.
19:45Just a lot of people don't know that...
19:47...there is flour as you can eat.
19:53So...
19:55...we have...
19:59...one over there.
20:03That'll do.
20:11Just get rid of that.
20:13And then all I have to do is add the fruit...
20:15...and then...
20:17...give it a nice stir.
20:19And serve it up.
20:25These are strawberries and gooseberries...
20:27...I just picked there.
20:31These gooseberries are going to be tart...
20:33...because they're...
20:35...not quite ripe yet.
20:37I'm just going to half them and throw them in.
20:41There we go.
20:43Just keep a couple aside.
20:45I think that's enough for how much we have.
20:47Just going to mix all that around now.
20:51You can see all the colours.
20:55It's melting there.
20:57And it smells really fresh.
21:03The different herbs and leaves are...
21:05...giving off a lovely aroma.
21:07There we go.
21:09Serve it up now.
21:25Give it a spin.
21:55There we go.
22:05So that's it now.
22:07I'll do the taste test next.
22:13Just want to get a wee follow of it...
22:15...before I do that.
22:25I'm going to try this now.
22:27I'm just going to cheat there...
22:29...and get a bit of strawberry first.
22:35The mint's very strong.
22:47That's not bad at all.
22:49There we go.
22:53I'm not just saying that for the camera.
22:55It actually tastes nice.
22:57Surprise, surprise.
22:59Yeah, I've got half an oak for that...
23:01...that somebody shared with me.
23:13It tastes really, really fresh.
23:15Like, really fresh.
23:19There we go.
23:29I'm going to put this down for an extra bit...
23:31...and show you this bit.
23:45Yep.
23:47There you go.
23:49There you have it.
23:53It's a 7-flour salad.
24:17Thanks for watching!