Tuesday eating from your yard tip~the best $3 you will ever spend is on a packet of nasturtium seeds. The leaves, flowers and seeds are edible. There is nothing tricky about eating nasturtiums you can eat them raw or cooked. As I have been sharing these eating from your yard tips it is clear my go to use for most herbs is added to cream cheese, thrown in a salad or egg dish ~no variation here. The extra cool thing about nasturtiums is that the color holds up when baked, so chop up some leaves and flowers to give a peppery splash of color to flatbread or pizza crust. Nila Jacobson commented that she added nasturtiums to her fruit salad and her daughter, Grace, has used them to decorate cakes. You can also create a festive butter by mixing chopped flowers mixed into softened butter, then put it back in the refrigerator in a mold or any container to firm up before serving. The lily pad leaves make an edible appetizer serving plate. Stuff the flowers with cream cheese or anything you can form into a soft ball. As an example I stuffed the nasturtium flower with chopped sage mixed into quark and placed it on the leaf for easy serving. Rose Bernstein stuffs the flowers with tuna salad to compliment the pepper of the flowers. I’m not much of a pickler, but I have been told the seeds can be pickled as a caper substitute. How do you eat nasturtiums?
Growing tips ~ Nasturtiums are an annual, which are easy to grow from seed. It helps if you soak the seeds in water before you plant them. Nasturtiums need well drained soil and don’t like to get too dry. Bonus they produce more lovely flowers in less than ideal soil. Fertilizer or rich soil will produce mostly leaves.
