EDIBLE BERRIES FROM THE KOUSA DOGWOOD

The idea that a person must buy every morsel of food that they consume from a grocery store.....has become deeply entrenched in our society. Our intricately woven structure of commerce can be fairly fragile. Natural disasters, trucking strikes,accidental food contamination, inflation, possible restricitve government laws, agricultural terrorism....etc can all play a role in bringing this corporate food system to a standstill and or make food unaffordable. This blog is about taking back at least some of the responsibility for the food we eat. The process of learning and experimentation can be alot of fun and very rewarding. It is crucial that we learn what we can and pass it on to our children.

Even if you live in the city with a balcony or in suburbia, with a small plot of land.... there are choices you can make which will help the environment (more diversification) and will help save money while at the same time you will able to grow much healthier fresher food than you could ever buy in the grocery store. Keeping up with the Jones...as far as who has the biggest most weed free expanse of lawn, can be boring and toxic (chemicals used to keep it perfect looking). Why not be different and become a positive example for your neighbors...by utilizing all of your land or part of it with vegetable gardens and edible landscaping? Check out the video in the sidebar...down near the bottom...called Homegrown Revolution. I found it to be very inspiring.

The picture above is a photo of our Japanese or Kousa Dogwood that we had for years shading our deck. I must admit that it was a bit messy. I was always sweeping the flowers and mushy berries off of the deck. But...it was so beautiful.....in the spring with the long lasting flowers and in the fall with the brilliant berries. The tree has since died and I miss it. The part that really upsets me though is that for all of the time this tree graced our deck, I never even once suspected that its berries were edible. I found out about the berries the year we had to cut the tree down...and it was too late. There is one small consolation though....This year we found a small seedling growing out from under the deck which was the offspring of our original tree. We transplanted it close to where the parent tree had been....and it is doing very well. Maybe in a couple more years we will be able to try those beautiful berries that the birds loved so.

Maybe you have a Japanese Dogwood near you or you may want to plant one. See the video below to learn more about these berries

EAT YOUR FLOWERS!

 

Just about everyone remembers their mothers telling them to eat their vegetables. I know that was part of my childhood and I told my children to do the same. Now that I have discovered the beauty, nutrition and the exciting different tastes of flowers, I now admonish my friends and family to Eat Their Flowers! It's fun watching the different reactions people have. Some people dive right in, others never heard of eating this part of a plant but will hesitantly try some and then there is the subset who doesn't want anything to do with it.

The flowers in the picture above are nasturtiums. These flowers are among the more well known varieties that are used for culinary purposes. Nasturtium flowers have a peppery taste, as do their leaves, which can also be eaten. I'm fairly new at  incorporating flowers into recipes. So far, I have mainly used them in salads and for dressing up serving bowls of food or garnishing dinner plates. I also used some red bee balm petals in some kefir cheese I made....which was quite beautiful.

This morning I was reading a bit more online about the properties of flowers and found it interesting that nasturtiums contain mustard oil which may have anti-microbial properties. Flowers also contain vitamins A , C and other nutrients. Some flowers have a crunchy texture and others are silky soft. Their tastes range from peppery, sweet, oniony, spicy....and some seem to not have much flavor at all.

If you are a visual person and colors excite and soothe you,....and you love to try new things, you might want to read the book  The Edible Flower Garden (Edible Garden Series)

The photography in this book is absolutely stunning.This book is what started me on the edible flower journey and has enticed me to take photographs of my own, which I have included here. I am having so much FUN running around growing, picking,taking pictures of, cooking and decorating with flowers. For me its uplifting...and whatever is uplifting is good for the soul and the immune system. The Edible Flower Garden lists the different flowers that are edible, along with their pictures. Some recipes and food decorating ideas are also included. One word of advice...Always be sure you identify a flower correctly before eating it.

 
Part of my interest in edible flowers stems from the idea of edible landscaping and foraging and how we need to get back to using what nature has to offer and making better use of the land we own. Grass is ok...but can you eat it? We have been conditioned to think that we need outside carpets that are as perfect and sterile as the carpets inside our homes. This leads to the use of weed killers and pesticides and chemical fertilizers....and the poisoning of the very land we live on. Think about it
 

This is a picture I took of the salad we ate last night . Kinda pretty, huh? It's certainly easy to put together.