There’s an abundance of colorful plants in the market and we got to thinking about the variety of plants and flowers our vendors grow and the many uses they have beyond beautifying your garden. From adding color and zest to a salad to a medicinal tea, flowers aren’t just for your garden.
What’s Cooking America has an excellent guide for edible plants and how to use them, including notes on identifying look-alikes that could be poisonous.
Cartwheel Community Farm has a sweet little assortment of edible flowers that make a great addition to spring vegetable dishes and salads.
DeLeon’s Farm sells bunches of chives with their blossoms. Chive blossoms can be used for salads, savory garnish, or you can make a chive blossom vinegar from them. Chive blossom vinegar is a great addition to marinades and summer sides like potato salad or three bean salad. Spruce Eats has a great recipe for chive blossom vinegar.
Marketing Manager, Kate Laubernds, loves this radish and edible flower salad recipe that utilizes every spring vegetable and is stunningly beautiful.
N&M Herb Nursery has a rainbow of flowers to plant in your garden that are edible treats, including nasturtium, pansy, geranium, and begonia.
Pumpkin Ridge Gardens also have starts of nasturtium and pansy, but a handful of flowers for medicinal use, including feverfew, echinacea, and borage, among others. Co-owner, Polly Gottesman, along with business partner, Lyn Jacobs, both are a wealth of information on flowers and their medicinal uses. If you are wanting to plant a medicinal garden they can help you decide best what to plant and how to care for and prepare your plants for ingestible use.
Warm Regards,
The Beaverton Farmers Market
We will see you all this Saturday at the Market, from 9AM-1:30PM!
What Is Hibiscus?
What got us thinking about edible flowers was an article we read last week from Bon Appetite’s newsletter, Basically called, “What Is Hibiscus?”. But come to find out, the part of the hibiscus plant that is used for edible use is not actually the flower.
“Often—and erroneously—described as a flower, the hibiscus we cook with is actually a collection of sepals (known as a calyx), the part of a flowering plant that protects the bud and supports the petal once in bloom. Before the plant flowers, the calyx resembles a pointed bud, holding the seed pod, but it unfurls as the flowers push through the pod.”
The calyx can be used for many edible uses by soaking overnight. The liquid can then be drunk as a tea or simmered down to a syrup with other herbs and spices, or with the spent soaked calyx you can make sugar or paste. The syrup is most often used for making beverages such as Bissap.
If you’re adventurous Basically share how to prepare the hibiscus calyx for tea or syrup. Luckily, we have a vendor in the market that makes their own version of Bissap, Hibisbloom! Owner, Affouet Price, hails from the Ivory Coast and has brought this refreshing beverage to Oregon. Hibisbloom has both ready to drink beverages, as well as concentrated syrups that can be used as a beverage base or cocktail mixer. On hot summer days you can count on Hibisbloom to have hibiscus popsicles to cool you down after you stroll the market.
Hibisbloom is naturally sweetened with Monk Fruit, a natural zero calorie and glycemic index sweetener for guilt-free enjoyment. They elevate the smooth sweet taste with a pinch of raw and unprocessed Demerara sugar (certified vegan, kosher and GF). Hibisbloom comes in three main flavors, Savanna Cinnamon, Cascade Vanilla, and Cavally Mint; with two limited seasonal flavors, Immune System Booster (blend of hibiscus, mulberry, aronia berry, and ginger), and Sahara Breeze (white hibiscus, dates, and lemon).
Not Umami’s Cooking
Last weekend marked the start of Not Umami’s Cooking at the Beaverton Farmers Market. Kelsey Miguel started Not Umami’s Cooking, a food blog that documents her love of cooking, which she gained from her mother and grandmother, and it has now blossomed into a gyoza food business. Not Umami’s Cooking has three ready to heat frozen gyoza flavors, including pork, vegan, and chicken. Gyoza packages are sold by the dozen for $12 or three dozen for $30 and come with reheating instructions. These gyoza are not your typical frozen food aisle gyoza, they are flavorful, savory, and perfectly folded pockets of deliciousness!
Out of Hand is finally back in the market! We are so thrilled to have these ladies back with their savory hand pie concoctions, and we know you are too!
Also, in the Market this week is Goddess Mousse, Kia Roots, Fermentista, and Jimmy Tomato.
Missing from the Market is 2 Angry Cats, Peace of Soap, and Pearson Nursery.
In case you missed it, Market Sprouts kids club is back! This week we will have Market Sprouts trivia and a take home nature scavenger hunt for your little market goer.
