By this time every year I feel emotionally done with winter. Any snow-like qualities I found endearing at the beginning of the season have turned into a contemptible pile of dirty slush. Desperate to hang out with adult humans after months of cold and caring for sick children, I felt determined to make this gathering feel like a restful yet joyful reprieve.
Though the seasonal options for flowers and vegetables are sparse during this time of year, the little peaks of green popping up through the ground offer just enough hope to get us through. February is full of fertile ground. Though many of the flowers we worked with during our winter gathering were grown in green houses or preserved from autumn’s bounty, all were grown on American soil and are a foretaste of what is coming in the months ahead.
Bouquets: American Grown Blooms
Dried amaranth, Blushing Parasol rose, diosma, dried eucalyptus, mimosa, Icelandic poppies, ranunculus, Queen Anne’s Lace, tulips, wax flower
Sourced from: American Street Flower Farm, Florabundance, Kendall Farms (Pennock), Twins Flower Farm (Pennock)
Vegetable Plant Features:
Organic carrots, organic Kale, organic potatoes
Sourced from: Mariposa, a local West Philly food Co-op
The Flowers
When I think about American grown flowers blooming in February, I think of mimosa, those little yellow balled puffs of pure joy. Paired with poppies, tulips and ranunculus— a bouquet whimsical and wild in nature emerges— alluding to an earth about to wake. Below are the ingredients and process for creating a bouquet using a mix of fresh flowers and dried flowers.
Ingredients
Dried amaranth
Blushing Parasol rose
Diosma
Dried eucalyptus
Mimosa
Parrot tulips
Icelandic poppies
Ranunculus
Queen Anne’s Lace
Wax flower
Prep
Once you have gathered and sourced your flowers and placed them in a bucket, find a rubber band and set aside. Fill a mason jar with water to place your bouquet in after it is complete.
Begin processing your plants by stripping away the leaves while leaving some as you see fit. When stripping flowers for a bouquet, it is important to remove all the thorns and poky stems so that whoever is holding them does not get a surprise pinch.
Give your flowers another snip at the ends before placing them back in your bucket.
My Process… yours might be different and that is okay
Start with the tulip and ranunculus and begin adding in flowers so that the stems form a spiral in your hands. You may do this my twisting your hand around after adding each stem at the same angle as you twist or by holding your bouquet in place and adding in flowers at opposing angles in the front and back of your bouquet. For more intensive instruction, I highly recommend attending Bouquet Bootcamp with Amy Balsters of The Floral Coach. She is both talented and an extremely communicative teacher.
After the tulips and ranunculus, begin adding poppies, and roses into the spiral.
Add in Amaranth, Queen Anne’s Lace then diosma and wax flower
(*Note: this bouquet has a lot of small “filler flowers.” This creates a more wild flower look)
Once your flowers are in the spiral, loosen your grip and adjust any flower heads where you see fit, leaving the stems in place in order to maintain the spiral.
Clip the ends at a 45 degree angle. Rubber band your bouquet and place it in some water.
The Feast
Kale is a hearty winter vegetable that feels refreshing after a long winter of soups and stews. The main course for this meal was inspired by and adapted from a salad in the Jerusalem Cook Book. Even though the recipe calls for spinach, in the winter I prefer the texture of Kale. Fun fact, my friends in college used to make fun of my kale obsession because I was indeed obsessed… and still am! There is nothing more refreshing than greens mixed together with spices and interesting flavours that leave you filling full. I used to never order salads in fear that I would feel hungry afterward but with the right amount of protein and healthy fats, a salad can serve as one of the most satiating portions of a meal.
Below I have included recipes for a garlic dressing and my version of the Jerusalem Cookbook Salad. In addition to the salad, we shared roasted potatoes from this New York Times recipe, roasted carrots from Michael Symon’s book, Fix It With Food, and Raspberry Zucchini muffins from my favorite new cookbook, Rise and Run.
Image from Canva
Garlic Dressing
Ingredients
2 Garlic cloves
1/2 cup of olive oil
2- 3 table spoons of your choice of vinegar
salt to taste
Instructions
Remove the skins from the garlic and the very ends, then with a mortar and pestle, smash the garlic into juicy bits
Scrape the garlic from the mortar and pestle into a jar, then add olive oil, and vinegar
Add a generous portion of salt
Stir the mixture really well with a fork then pour over everything from salad to potatoes to chicken!
*Store in fridge for up to 7 days
Jerusalem Kale Salad with bacon
(serves 7)
Ingredients
10-12 slices of bacon (obviously omit if vegetarian or vegan). The salad still tastes great with out it.
1 red onion thinly sliced
3.5 ounces of pitted dates sliced into thirds
1 TBSP if White wine vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Tablespoons of bacon grease or butter (olive oil if vegan)
2 pita bread rounds broken into bite sized pieces. HERE is my favorite Paleo flat bread recipe.
1/2. cup sliced almonds
2 tsp of sumac
1-2 Tbsp of olive oil
7-8 oz of chopped kale
Salt to taste
Lemon juice from one lemon
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400.
Lay bacon out on a sheet pan and bake for 12-15 minutes. Keep the remainder of the bacon grease to use for later. Once cooled, chop the bacon down.
In a medium bowl, mix the white wine vinegar, sliced dates and onions together with your hands then let it marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes or so.
Place a saucepan over medium heat and when hot, pour the bacon grease into the pan (butter or olive oil is fine if you are avoiding animals). Add in the pita bread and almonds and saute for 7-8 minutes or until crispy and fragrant. Take off the heat and mix in the sumac. Set aside to cool.
In a separate large bowl, place the chopped Kale, 1 tablespoons of olive oil and 1/4 tsp of salt and for five minutes, massage oil and salt into the kale with cleansed and dried hands.
Add in the date and onion marinade along with the pita, almond mixture to the kale and mix. Spray the lemon over the salad.
Top with dressing and bacon bits as desired.