The garden is thinning out, but I have one nasturtium left. I finally decided I would taste it!! The flowers and leaves were just too pretty to touch during the summer. I checked my old herb books and beisdes various salad mixes, found a recipe for a SANDWICH!! If you like watercress, this is it!! They are milder than radishes, I think, and go down much easier. I definitely will grow them again next year!!
Has anyone else found any other ways to serve these??
Fall Is Here..and a Nasturtium Sandwich...
I use the flowers as garnish and the leaves in salads. I like eating the flowers much more than I like the leaves!
Yes, the flowers were surpisingly tasty, just a bit of peppery. I really liked them! I agree that they make a delightful garnish. They are so pretty, and I had 3 hot colors. I only got pictures of two. The dog ran over them. I am looking for the recipe on nasturtium martinis I saw a while back........
Here's one that the dog beat up. A hot orange! There was a really bright yellow one, too, that I lost.
You can stuff nasturtium blossoms with a cream cheese. Take out the pistils from the center of the flower. Soften cream cheese and add your favorite herbs to it. It might include chives or thyme or lemon balm. Put the softened cream cheese into a piping bag with a tip or just put it into a zip lock plastic baggie and cut the corner off to be able to pipe the filling. Fill up the blossom. Place in fridge to firm up (30 minutes or so). Enjoy.
Great idea, Herbalbetty! Cream cheese certainly sounds good with these. Those would make good party finger food. I am looking for more good and fun things to do with nasturtiums. I still have a lot of flowers out there. The more I cut, the more I get!!
I wonder if you could ice them to float in drinks? I will give it a try and see what happens! I read something about "candying" borage flowers to use on cakes. This probably could be done with nasturtiums, as well.
Foxy, I have candied borage, violets, pansies, rose petals, angelica stems and ginger, but not nasturtiums! That would certainly be a taste combo - peppery and sugary! Hmmm....You can also tincture nasturtium and use it for an upper respiratory cold. Nasturtium vinegar is good.
What great ideas. My nasturtiums are huge and beautiful this year. I mentioned the cream cheese stuffing to a group that was touring my yard over the weekend. They loved the idea. Think I'll make some for our Herb Guild next week. Never thought about putting them in vinegar. Wonder if they would combine with horehound as I'm going to be making horehound candy this week?
I don't know about "nasties" (my children's name for nasturtiums) and horehound, made into horehound candy, but I use ginger root when I make mine, it improves the flavour and adds a little "bite":) I'm not sure I could still call it horehound candy, though.
Yes, I wanted to make some "nasties" vinegar---my word for them, too, since the last three syllables ('tur-ti-um') are a Dr. Seus tongue-twister and hard to say! However, I cut all the flowers available last weekend when it was warm and tried my ice cube experiment. Bummer-the ice cube trays weren't big enough for the flowers, so I put them in measuring cups with water and froze them. The flowers weren't too visible at first, but sitting in a bowl of water, the ice quickly melted and what did I get? Soggy flowers floating. You DON"T want to do that--plus, they aren't suited for a sweet drink, anyway. Maybe a Bloody Mary, but not your giner ale punch.
Herbalbetty--I was only thinking of crystalizing the flowers for decor, not for eating. However, they just might taste more tempting for kids if they're sugared! I read that watercress is a "tonic" herb for energy. If so, mothers need to get their kids to eat them. Like the Dr. Seus book, "Green Eggs & Ham", put the candied flowers out and say, "Eat them, eat them, here they are!" Would you like them in a box? Would you like them with a fox? On a boat? With a goat?? LOL. Yess, I have a kid. He's 8. I'm well versed in Seus.
This one is one of our favorites!!
Foxnfirefly, we used to have green eggs and ham regularly for breakfast. There is a South American breed of chickens, that lays eggs in every shade of green, from mint to olive, and even speckled ones, too. They're Araucana chickens. My kids used to collect their eggs during the summers. They're especially handy around the spring holidays, when colored eggs are in style..We never colored ours, between the green-blue eggs, red-brown eggs, and cream -white eggs, we didn't need to!
Another Seuss mom