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Temperatures outside are hitting the 90s and the idea of heating up our oven or cooking over a hot stove does not sound appealing at all. When I ran across beautiful spring greens peppered with pansy flowers at the local farmer’s market I knew a delicious salad would be in my future. I paired the greens and edible flowers with Oregon blackberries, honey goat cheese, honey baked walnuts and blackberry vinaigrette. The blackberry and edible flower salad was the perfect accompaniment to a baked salmon.

This post is in partnership with Oregon Berries. All opinions are my own. About Oregon Berries: The Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission focuses on promoting caneberries to multiple audiences, and supports Oregon berry farmers by fostering plant research and farming education initiatives. Find Oregon Berry brands on the Oregon Berries website! 

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad | A Well Crafted Party

Isn’t it beautiful? There is just something about beautiful food that makes it just that much more delicious. This salad was probably the best salad I’ve ever made. Even my kids ate it well. I sourced much of my ingredients from the local farmer’s market, but you can certainly find similar ingredients in your supermarket. Not all supermarkets carry edible flowers or microgreens, but I’ve been lucky to find them in natural food stores and specialty markets. Below I share a little bit about the ingredients that I chose to use and possible substitutions, followed by the recipe.

Greens: I used farmer’s market greens and pea shoot micro greens. You can use your favorite spring greens to recreate this salad, though, I’d stay away from too many bitter leaves such as arugula. This salad needs the sweetness that arugula (a favorite green of mine) just doesn’t have.  the pea shoot micro greens give a sweet pea-flavor to the salad. It can certainly be made without, but we thought it was a nice touch in the flavor profile.

Edible Flowers: I chose pansies for this salad because they are not strong in flavor, but look so pretty! Pansies flavor is super mild, slightly sweet, and almost mint-like. Many other edible flowers could also work in this salad such as borage blossoms or violets.

Blackberries: As I am working with Oregon Berries, I chose fresh Oregon blackberries for this salad. I used frozen Oregon Blackberries to create the vinaigrette. You can find Oregon blackberries at many grocery stores throughout the berry season. Thankfully, you can often find them in the freezer section! I often find berries from Stahlbush Island Farms. Find other Oregon Berry brands on the Oregon Berries website.

Honey Goat Cheese: My favorite honey goat cheese is found at Trader Joes. Don’t have one nearby? Just mix goat cheese and honey together for a similar flavor.

Honey Walnuts: You can absolutely substitute a candied walnut here, but I liked the more subtle flavor of honey walnuts and they are super simple to make. I cover raw walnuts in honey and put them on a parchment sheet covered baking pan. I then roast in the oven at 350 for about 5 minutes. Do watch the walnuts as they can burn fairly quickly.

Blackberry Vinaigrette: You can substitute a raspberry vinaigrette from the store, but it is super easy to make your own vinaigrette and the blackberry flavor that this one imparts really makes for a delicious dressing!

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad | A Well Crafted Party

The following blackberry and edible salad measurements are optional. You can build this salad to your taste and to your ingredient set. That is the best part about salads, in my opinion, you can really get such inspiration from recipes, but then create something that is truly unique to your tastes.

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad with Honey Goat Cheese

Makes 1 large salad which could be enough for two dinner sized portions or four side-sized portions

Ingredients: 

  • 7 cups of spring greens
  • 1 cup of pea shoot micro greens
  • 12-18 pansy flowers
  • 1/4 cup of honey goat cheese pulled into small chunks
  • 1/2 cup of honey walnuts
  • 1 pint of fresh Oregon blackberries, rinsed
  • Blackberry Vinaigrette (keep scrolling for recipe)

Directions: 

  1. Rinse all greens and dry well. Be careful not to bruise the greens in the rinsing/drying process. I tend to use a salad spinner with a paper towel in it to spin off the water after rinsing.
  2. Toss the spring greens and micro greens together in your serving bowl.
  3. Disperse the honey walnuts, blackberries, and honey goat cheese throughout the salad.
  4. Top with pansy flowers.
  5. You can pre-dress the salad, but I prefer to serve the dressing on the side and allow everyone to dress their own portion. The dressing will weigh down the pansy flowers if you pre-dress and some people prefer less dressing while others prefer more.

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad | A Well Crafted Party

Blackberry Vinaigrette

This recipe makes 8 oz of dressing. You’ll need a small saucepan and fine mesh sieve to create this dressing.

Ingredients: 

  • 1 cup of Blackberries (frozen works best)
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/8 cup of water
  • 1 Tablespoon of honey
  • freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup of olive oil
  • 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
  • Salt & Pepper

Directions:

  1. Put the blackberries, water, and sugar into a small saucepan and cook over medium-low heat on a stovetop. Stir occasionally. Cook approximately 10 minutes, or when the blackberries have been cooked down.
  2. Strain the blackberry mixture through a fine-mesh sieve saving the liquid.
  3. Mix 1/4 cup of the blackberry syrup, with the juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 cup of olive oil, tablespoon of honey, and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Shake the mixture well. Add salt and pepper to taste, shaking well in between additions of seasoning.

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad | A Well Crafted Party

 

These cucumber sandwiches were originally featured in my Valentine’s Spa Day Lunch post with FREE PRINTABLES! You might have also saw them on KATU’s Afternoon Live.  They are both tasty and famous! 😉 Big thank you to my friend Alicia who helped me prep everything for the TV shoot and put together these beautiful sandwiches for photographs!

Heart Shaped Cucumber Sandwiches - A Well Crafted Party

Valentine’s Day for me is a time to celebrate all of the people I love, not just my husband. Each year I try to come up with at least a fun valentine to share with friends, coworkers, and my children. This year I went a little further and came up with a party designed to celebrate the very busy, kind, and often stressed women in my life. I had the opportunity to share the Valentine’s Spa Day Lunch on KATU’s Afternoon Live and here on the blog.

Heart Shaped Cucumber Sandwiches

One of the tasty recipes that I put together for the party is this heart shaped cucumber sandwich. Cucumber sandwiches are known mainly as a go-to for tea parties. However, because I love the little sandwiches and feel like spa days and cucumbers go hand in hand, I thought it would make for a nice light lunch item for either a Valentine’s Day Tea Party or a Valentine’s Spa Party. I think these sandwiches would also be great for a wedding shower, bachelorette tea, baby shower, or a tea-time reception.

The recipe is pretty simple and can be adjusted to taste. If you are really stressed for time then substitute the cream cheese mixture below with a ready-made herbed cream cheese. I personally like my cucumber sandwiches on a nice white bread, but feel free to change the bread to any that you prefer. I use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out my hearts taking a knife to trim the edges if needed. Metal cookie cutters work best for this, but really, any cookie cutter will do.

 

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Don’t forget to hop on over to the main Valentine’s Day Spa Lunch post to get your free party printables!


Open Faced Prosciutto Sandwich // A Well Crafted Party
There is nothing quite like a good sandwich. This sandwich is no exception. It is super simple to make, and freaking full of flavor. A big part of the flavor punch is due to the great ingredients. Believe me when I say that sometimes it makes a HUGE difference whether you buy quality ingredients over value priced items. Making a big stew? A few value items aren’t going to make a huge difference. But, when you have an item like this sandwich where there are few ingredients and you aren’t going to be changing the flavor profiles with a ton of seasoning and cooking… quality ingredients is where it is at.

Take for instance the butter in this sandwich. Sure, I could go with just any ole butter. But, a nice rich Irish or European style butter will lend a nice base for this sandwich. Heck, a great butter on a piece of bread with a sprinkle of salt is a treat in itself!

Open Faced Prosciutto Sandwich // A Well Crafted Party

Open Faced Prosciutto Sandwich with Fig Spread and Black Pepper Cheddar

This recipe tells you how to build an individual sandwich. The amount of sandwiches you can make depends on the size of the bread that you buy and the amount of prosciutto comes in a package. Because these things are not standard, I didn’t elect to dictate serving size.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 slice of prosciutto (I use Del Duca Sliced Prosciutto)
  • 1 slice (about 1/4 inch thickness) of Smoked Black Pepper White Cheddar Cheese (I use the kind from Tillamook, it is amazing.)
  • 1 thick spreading of good quality butter (I use Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter)
  • 1 thick slice of freshly baked bread– I used an Italian loaf that was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside
  • 1 thick spreading of fig spread (I use Dalmatia Spread Fig)
  • Salt & Pepper

Directions:

  1. Spread butter on thick slice of bread.
  2. Season with salt and pepper
  3. Spread fig spread onto butter
  4. Top with slice of black pepper cheddar
  5. Top with slide of prosciutto
  6. Enjoy!

We enjoyed these at a picnic along with my open-faced crab sandwiches. But, these would also be fantastic made in miniature and served as appetizers at your next party!

Open Faced Prosciutto Sandwich // A Well Crafted Party