The days are growing longer and hotter as we arrive at the longest day of the year. The natural world is busy and bright with bees collecting the succulent nectar of flowers. The Crow Women have a number of songs to honor the Summer Solstice including Suncycle on Crow Magic, which I love to listen to as I prepare for the ritual feast of the longest day.
As I gather the lettuces and other greens that I will use in my salad offering I wander through the garden picking a flower here and there as well, which I like to add to create more beauty and magic. The spicy oranges and reds of nasturtiums combined with the coriander scented flowers of bolting cilantro (same plant, different parts) and bright blue borage flowers that hint of cucumber all bring flavor and beauty to summer salads.
Other flowers of midsummer include dandelion flower petals, which can be added to cookies for a light honey like flavor and golden color. Rose petals can be added to everything from desserts to your bath. And of course squash blossoms are wonderful stuffed with goat cheese and fried in batter, and you can use the male blossoms on the long stems so that you can still have an abundance of summer squash from the female flowers, just be sure to leave one male flower to pollinate the female flowers.
Edible Flower Midsummer Salad
- Lettuces of your choice – I love the mix of colors and flavors from red lettuce, butter and romaine
- Grated carrots and beets for more color and sweetness
- Edible Flowers – Nasturtiums, coriander (cilantro) flowers, calendula petals, violets and pansies, borage, flowers from oregano or thyme, rose petals, scarlet runner flowers and dandelion petals are all wonderful
- Pumpkin seeds
Lemon salad dressing
- 1 small shallot, chopped
- ¾ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon honey
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Wishing you a delicious Litha!
For more information about the Crow Women pagan choir, and access to all the blog posts by Melanie and the other 9 crowsingers who have written for Pagan Song, you can visit the Crow Women author page here on Pagan Song.
Please subscribe to the Pagan Song blog, to receive our blog post each week. Don’t miss any of the musical magic!
Visit our homepage to see the full list of the musicians who write for the Pagan Song blog.
Pagan Song has a fan club on Patreon. Join for as little as $3 a month for exclusive features! Click for info.
When I used to have an herb garden, I grew borage specifically to make soup. The recipe was something like this (and if you don’t have enough borage leaves—wear gloves when harvesting, they’ve got prickles!— use any greens). Serves 4.
2 lbs borage leaves (or some other green)
2-4 green onions, sautéed (optional; I don’t like onions)
1+ cup white wine
1+ cup light stock — chicken or veggie
2 russet potatoes, cubed
Salt
Juice of a lemon
4 dollops sour cream
Borage flowers to garnish
Boil potatoes in water to cover for about 20 minutes. Add borage, wine, (sautéed onions), and stock, bring back to boil. Add wine or stock if needed to thin. Turn off heat, run through blender in batches, add salt to taste and lemon juice, then dish out. Garnish with dollops of sour cream, and flowers, and serve. Mmmmm!
Pingback: URL