Simple Goodness Sisters: Small Batch Syrups make Delightful Drinks

If I was able to put together this table at a GardenComm "Color in the Garden" event, then you know I'm well and fine. I've been away caring for my mom, but things are much better now and I'm happy to be able to backpedal a little and fill you in with the moments of delight that have happened while I've been away.

I want to highlight a lovely small batch syrup brand called Simply Goodness Sisters. They craft "garden-to-glass inspired syrups on our 10 acre cocktail farm in Buckley, Washington." Do you love it? I do! 

This lovely woman-owned company donated some of their luscious syrups to create botanical drinks to support a GardenComm event we hosted called "Color in the Garden." They sent us: Rhubarb Vanilla, Blueberry Lavender and Lemon Herb to combine with sparkling water to refresh everyone on a blazing August afternoon. We topped our drinks with edible flowers like nasturtiums and pansies and then offered blueberries, mint and herbs if attendees wanted to experiment even more. 

What I loved the most was the enthusiasm for the product. We had plenty of opportunities for them to try all 3 and they did! The ladies talked and drank and adorned their glasses over and over. It was a success x10. And the interestingly, they seemed to like all 3 equally. They were drawn to the Rhubarb Vanilla first. Then Blueberry Lavender. Then Lemon Herb. But they enjoyed them all and they were excited to hear that the company owns and operates a Soda Shop in Wilkeson, WA that make everything from milkshakes to mixed drinks. Sisters' Choice and it sounds delightful. Personally, I know I need to take a field trip. They are open through mid-December and then close until Spring. 

Thank you, Simply Goodness Sisters! 

#botanical #farmtoglass #pnw #drinksyrups #beverages #edibleflowers #gardencomm #region6

 
 

Edible Flowers in Ice Cubes

Finding Delight in everyday life means being on the lookout for pretty moments that you can appreciate...and share. The beauty in a stack of fresh lemons. The cute sticker your friend put on the envelope before she mailed it. Honestly, little things make me happy.

For example, these darling ice cubes I made with edible flowers. I found a package of fresh violet and pansy blossoms for $5 at a vegetable stand at the corner of Pike St and Pike Place (Frank's Quality Produce) in Pike Place Market.

The next time I come across a selection this grand, I hope to have time to make sugared flowers to decorate cupcakes. 

For this first attempt, I placed a flower in each compartment, and filled the ice cube tray with filtered water from my refrigerator. The floral ice cubes look beautiful, but some of the petals floated out of the ice and froze on top.

To improve the look of my ice cubes next time, I will definitely try the "boil water, then letting it cool" method (this is said to create clear ice). I will also try filling each cube only half way, placing a flower in and then freezing. Once frozen, I will fill the rest of the cube with water to truly lock the blossom in ice.

This version is still beautiful and I can't tell you how they jazzed up the lemonade when my friends came for dinner. 

#entertaining #edible flowers #finddelight

Flower Arranging: When Dessert is Edible Flowers

Tah-dah! This is what happens when I find edible flowers at the farmers market! I make impromptu cupcakes, just to have somewhere to showcase them!

I was at the West Seattle farmers market on Sunday and I was drawn to a bag of fresh mixed greens that had edible flowers among them. I had never seen someone sell them that way and I was hoping to find more flowers in her stand. I was right. She had bags of edible flower blossoms, by color! 

When she started to get some out for me, she asked how many I needed and of what color? Oh, I don't know, 10? A few of each? I am probably just going to amuse myself by making cupcakes and sticking one on each. She seemed to love that, so I gave her my card so that she could look up the blog and see her flowers in action.

My mistake? I didn't get her card to be able to point people back to her stand to buy edible flowers. Honey, if you see this, message me here or at anneheldreeves@hotmail.com and I'll give your farm stand proper credit.

And, THANK YOU! They were delicious!

Edible Flowers Make the Cake

Edible flowers turn a simple lemon cake into something that makes any old day of the week feel special.  This is the intersection where gardener meets gourmet.

Today I went to the farmer's market in Leland, Michigan and I met a sweet couple from Eureka Farms selling small bags of edible flowers.  

When I head to a small town farmer's market, I expect to see cherries, honey, soap, onions.  Edible Flowers?  You could have knocked me over with a nasturtium.

I immediately told them that I love decorating salads and sweets with edible flowers and that they were hard to come by.  And yes, I assured her that I not only decorate with the flowers, but I also eat them with abandon.  

The woman was so pleased that I was a kindred spirit and fellow flower-eater that we started chatting about our edible floral experiences.  I told her about eating daylilies with cheese piped into the blossom.  She told me that she once brought edible flowers to a party and a friend said, "I thought you were a vegetarian!"  She didn't understand the joke until her friend showed her a spider hiding under one of the petals. Ha!

She pointed out that she brings flyers on "eating edible flowers" to convince shoppers that it is indeed safe and enjoyable.  When I told her that I would include a post about her flowers in my blog about "things that bring a moment of delight" she was tickled.  The shock was that I had already featured her flowers before!  And I mean, HER flowers.

Remember this post on edible flowers that I wrote in 2009?  I bought the edible flowers in that photo from "The Ugly Tomato" farm stand on M22, just West of Lime Lake Road (next to Michigan Traders).  I found out today that the edible flowers at The Ugly Tomato are from her garden at Eureka Farms.  She was pleased to know that people all over the world have admired her flowers through my blog post.  That particular photo is one of my most popular online.  

So tonight I made a simple lemon cake, glazed it with lemon icing and covered it with edible flowers.  It was almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.  

White Chocolate Flowers

I am going to make these white chocolate flowers again and again.  They are beautiful, exciting (for me, anyway, I gave a "whoop" when they released perfectly from the mold) and add something special to Spring desserts.

You will need four items to make the beautiful flowers shown here.  Once you have purchased a mixed flowers chocolate mold (online or at a cake decorating supply store), you can head to the cake decorating section of a craft store like Michael's to find the rest.  You'll need white candy melts (or white chocolate chips), edible pearl dust in pastel shades and some food safe paint brushes. 

Assembling the items was the hard part! Now you simply follow the instructions of the candy discs to melt them in the microwave - I put a cup of them in a Ziploc bag and microwave at intervals of 10 seconds, kneading the bag in between.  Once the candy is smooth and pourable, snip a small corner of the bag off and pipe into the molds.  I use a flat plastic scraper to wipe off the excess chocolate and leave a smooth flat back to the candies.  Then holding the mold just above the counter top, gently tap-tap-tap the filled mold on the counter over and over again and watch the bubbles rise and break on the surface of the chocolate.  This removes the bubbles and helps the chocolate to flow into the intricate detail of the mold.  Keeping it flat, place mold in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to set the candy.  Then remove, place a cookie sheet  over the mold and flip it over so that the candy falls onto the cookie sheet.  If any of the pieces don't fall out, twist the mold slightly and they should release.

Dip a paint brush into the edible pearl dust and gently brush it over the white chocolate to add a lovely light color.  My favorite above is the lily of the valley - I painted green pearl dust on the leaves and left the white blossoms as pure white chocolate.

This is a whole new type of "edible" flower!  Enjoy!

*The inside of this cake is beautiful too!  Click to read about it here.

Birthday Month

What is this you ask?  A "Flowers of the Midwest" poster?  A botanical display?  No, this is my birthday lunch!

For ages, I have been amusing myself by saying that I celebrate my birthday for the entire month of August.  While it's true that I can't fit all of the cupcakes, visits with friends and general revelry into one day, I also am particularly vocal about it because I want you to embrace your birthday month too.  Let everything good that happens, be because it's your birthday.  Why not?

So often people play down their birthdays because (*gasp*) they are getting older.  I want to encourage my readers to soak up as much fun as they can.  If a friend wants to bring you a cupcake or go out to lunch - do it!  If you need an excuse to buy a romance novel or order dessert, let your birthday be the reason.  I like to imagine someone out there thinking, "Well if Anne is celebrating the entire month, surely I can do (blank)."  Maybe you don't think of me when your birthday month rolls around, but in case you do...I'm here and I say enjoy it.

As for the glorious lunch above, it is this year's masterpiece from Punzel, a tiny Scandinavian shop near Interlochen, Michigan.  My mom and I visit every August for my "birthday" lunch and I love it.  Edible flowers, cold fruit soup (complete with one gummy fish), squash blossoms, an open face sandwich of Swedish cheese and fresh herbs all artfully arranged on a leaf-lined glass plate. 

Certainly not your everyday lunch, but then again, it's my birthday.

Petite Sweet: Key Lime Pie

Do you want to take their breath away?  How about serving a petite sweet? 

My strategy for making super cute desserts is serving individual portions on small antique plates and then crowning each dessert with an edible flower. 

Made with just four ingredients (eggs, sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice and pre-made tart shells), this is the type of petite sweet that you can be ready to make at a moment's notice.  And now it is even easier to keep the these ingredients on hand, because I just discovered that Walmart now stocks Nellie and Joe's key lime juice.  Hallelujah. 

Key Lime Petite Sweet
1/2 cup key lime juice
1 can fat free sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
4 egg yolks
1 package of 6 mini graham cracker pie crusts
6 edible flowers

Stir sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks together. While stirring, slowly pour in key lime juice.  Place the individual pie crusts (in their metal tins) on a cookie sheet for stability.  Pour mixture into pie crusts and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool and then refrigerate a few hours to allow flavor to develop.  Before serving top with an edible flower, like this pansy.  Serve and bask in the oohs and ahhs. 

(Note: Edible flowers can be purchased in the packaged herb section of many large grocery stores and also at farm stands/vegetable marts where the blossoms are packaged and marketed specifically as edible flowers)

Visual Real Estate

I wanted you to see this because the use and placement of the ingredients shows the value of something that I had never considered before. The surface of a drink.

When I pour a glass of iced tea, I choose a pretty glass and then add ice to cool it and and lemon to flavor it.

From this photo, you can tell that the chef looks at the surface of the drink differently. She sees it the same way you see the surface of a cake. It is a space to be decorated.By placing a heart-shaped ice cube, a half-slice of lemon and a flower together on the surface of ligonberry tea, you can literally have edible art.

Have you ever seen the entire surface of a drink decorated? It is visual real estate.

Birthday Lunch

Today is my birthday (wahoo!) and since I believe in celebrating the entire month, I have to say that August has been great!

My birthday lunch is always "sometime in August" with my Mom at my favorite Scandinavian store called Punzel.

The photo above shows my one-of-a-kind lunch of edible flowers, crepes and loveliness from 2007. Can you stand it? I ate every petal!

Edible Flowers

I dug right in, I really did. How could you not eat something this beautiful? Plus a little salad dressing mellows out any sharp botanical flavors you might not be expecting.

It was a perfect Summer night at the cottage. For some reason I had the whole place to myself and I ate like a vegetarian. This flowerful salad, 2 ears of corn and some cherry clafoutis in the oven for dessert - heaven.

I found this big selection of edible flowers at a place called "The Ugly Tomato." They call themselves ugly because that they are a farm that grows and sells heirloom tomatoes that are warped and unusual looking. Have you seen heirloom tomatoes before? They really do boarder on ugly, but oh what flavor! Whenever the refrigerated section of this farm stand offers bagged edible flowers - I'm in!

Edible Flowers

This is what happens when I am left alone in the kitchen - an edible flower collage! This particular day, I had been to a farm stand called "The Ugly Tomato" (a.k.a. heirloom tomatoes) and found a salad mix of fresh greens and a Ziploc baggie full of flowers for $3.75. Sold!

That night I made a farmer's market dinner: fresh corn on the cob, steamed broccoli, baby fingerling potatoes and a big salad loaded with the edible flowers and herbs above (okay, not the big orange one second down from the left). The flowers were so pretty (and there were so many varieties!), I decided to lay them all out to see what I had. This is the result.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to eat my dinner or frame it, seriously.

Some of the flowers shown here are:

• Pansy
• Nasturtium
• Bachelor Button
• Violas
• Cosmos
• Calendulas

You can see a fabulous chart of edible flowers here.

When Lunch is Edible Art

Do you eat flowers? Have you dusted your plate with powdered sugar?

Each year I make a pilgrimage to the Scandinavian shop Punzel to enjoy a lunch so beautiful, it is worthy of a picture frame.

The elements of this work of art (horse-shaped "Dala" pasta, shrimp, begonias, a crepe) was completely unexpected and absolutely delicious.

What do you consider to be edible art?

Edible Art

Isn't this beautiful? I wanted to show you the prettiest lunch ever. And it was delicious too! Edible flowers (geranium and rose petal) with broiled cheese, kiwi and a bit of ligonberry jam on toast. I think it's unusual to describe an open face sandwich as beautiful. Every time I go to my favorite Swedish restaurant, Punzel, I marvel at the flavor combinations and promise myself that I will be a bit more daring when I make lunch. I tell you, inspiration is everywhere.

Gourmet Sandwiches

Now this is taking lunch to the next level! One of my favorite spots to have lunch in the summertime is a tiny Scandinavian Gift Shop called Punzel. It is about 15 minutes south of the Interlochen Center for the Arts and is a local treasure. Open-face sandwiches with edible flowers, soft cheese & broiled fruit make a lunch that is too pretty to eat. There is no menu, you simply make a reservation for "lunch" and you'll be delighted every time.