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Edible flowers top this pretty salad

Recipe: Spring strawberry salad with fresh violets

Plate with strawberries, violets, lettuce and radishes
As fresh and pretty as spring: Strawberry salad with fresh violets. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)


This vibrant spring salad is as flavorful as it is colorful. Both cut crosswise, fresh strawberries and radishes contrast nicely in both taste and texture. They look especially pretty combined with the rich greens of fresh spinach and leaf lettuce. (The variety used in this recipe: Red butterhead.)

The garnish is a conversation starter: Fresh violets. The white and blue varieties of Viola are edible.

Viola alba , the white perennial violet, is native to America’s woodlands. It’s a cast-iron ground cover in low-water gardens. It grows so easily, many gardeners consider it a weed.

If you can’t beat it, eat it. (Just make sure your violets haven’t been exposed to pesticides or herbicides.)
Pick your violets with about ½ inch of stem.

Plunge flowers immediately into ice-cold water. Keep them in cold water until ready to use. Other varieties of Viola may be substituted for violets; the smaller the varieties, the tastier.

White violets in a bowl of water
Put just-picked violets into very cold water to keep
them fresh.


Spring strawberry salad with fresh violets
Makes 2 to 4 servings

Ingredients:

4 to 6 strawberries, hulled and sliced crosswise
2 radishes, sliced
1 scallion, chopped
2 tablespoons slivered almonds
2 cups lettuce, roughly cut or torn into pieces
1 cup baby spinach leaves, roughly cut or torn into pieces

Dressing:
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon seasoning salt

Garnish:
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh violets or violas (optional)

Instructions:

In a large bowl, put sliced strawberries, radishes, scallions, lettuce and spinach. Toss lightly.

In a jar, combine olive oil, vinegar, Dijon mustard, sugar and seasoning salt. Cover jar and shake to combine. Pour dressing over salad and toss lightly again.

Divide salad onto plates. Garnish with violets or violas. Serve immediately.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

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Garden checklist for week of July 13

Put off big chores and planting until later in the week when the weather is cooler. In the meantime, remember to stay hydrated – advice for both you and your garden.

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.

* Give vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.

* Add some summer color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers. Plant Halloween pumpkins now.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

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