Saturday, April 20, 2013

another use for big leaf maple blossom

Big leaf maple blossoms can also be eaten raw: they taste kind of like a pea pod, green, but slightly sweet. I rinsed some remaining blossoms we had in the fridge and chopped them into a few pieces, then tossed them with the last leaves of a head of butter lettuce that was in the produce drawer. I added a few leaves of sorrel and some baby greens hanging onto the beets that overwintered in the garden (I sliced these boldly-flavoured leaves into thin strips), and some branches of salad burnet (I chopped these into short segments, and we ate the stems with the leaves). I tossed everything with a little bit of ranch dressing, then drizzled a bit more over the top after plating up the salad.

Simple and healthy, and a good way to stretch leftovers into a light lunch on this rainy Saturday afternoon.

2 comments:

Jenny said...

I didn't know you could eat them raw! Good to know. Looking at your beautiful salad I couldn't help but think how good some tulip petals would taste and look in there. They also have a pea flavor and add a great pop of color!

fleur_delicious said...

Jenny - yes! It always seems so weird to eat them, but they ARE tasty. It's almost (almost) enough to make me expand my flower beds and put some tulips in =)