Une Salade

      Our church had a supper on Thursday, and we were asked to bring a salad. I was less than thrilled.  I was a little happy because I didn't have to cook and as I was frantically sewing to try to get my Easter Dress and the husbandman's shirt done before he got home and I didn't really have time to spend obsessing over dessert in the kitchen. (I did get my dress done, but the husbandman's shirt still looks more like an unhemmed vest)  But on the other hand, I've never been good about eating my vegetables, and salads are pretty boring, and you can't really put a spin on it.  Unless you're my mom.  She had a way to shoot the normal pot luck salad clear out of the water.  What was it? Quite simple really, she brought home one of the prettiest flowers I had even seen and declared that it was not only pretty, but edible, and rather yummy!  It's called a Nastrutium. Here is an article from herbalgardens.com about how to grow and cook them. The Nasturtium Lemon Butter sounds very good. My mom says the blossoms taste a little like radishes. I have somehow gotten away with never eating radishes before (don't tell) and think they taste like lettuce with a little bit of a bite.  And using them in a salad could not be easier.

      First gather your regular ingredients, anything you like in a salad really. We used lettuce, celery, red bell pepper, cucumbers, croutons (old fashioned cut butter and garlic style). Chop them to bite size (or bigger than bite size if you want to watch everyone try to figure out how to politely eat salad that doesn't fit easily onto a fork. Not really, please don't do that, it's not very nice.) Hint I learned: if you have large sticks of celery and you are worried that they might be a little bitter, chop them very thinly, and then they will just add crunch and not overwhelm the salad.

      Then I ran out to the greenhouse to pick some of these. They will wilt very quickly, so pick them as late into the game as possible.

      Then boil some eggs.  I tend to boil a lot of eggs at once, since everyone seems to like to eat them, but no one else will bother boiling them.  Then, this is the key step, forget about them entirely.  Our carrots from the greenhouse were still to small to use and we had to leave early to go by the grocery store to buy some, and with one thing and another, we all forgot about the eggs.

      Lastly, toss everything, add a little dressing, place the blossoms on top, and serve. Doesn't that look better than the average salad?