Bringing Summer to the Table
 
     By simply adding flowers and touches of summer’s colors around the table, you can turn an ordinary setting into a delightful summer garden:
• Tie ivy around your napkins.
• At each corner of the table, gather a little poof of your tablecloth with a concealed rubber band or lovely ribbon, and insert a small bouquet of flowers or a large blossom like a rose or peony.
• Use a colored fabric under your white lace tablecloth.
• Poof fabrics down the center of the table.
• Vary your flower arrangements—tall, short, full or single blossom; float flowers, or place tiny bouquets at each person’s place.
• Scatter flower petals on top of the tablecloth.
• Have a single stemmed flower extending slightly out of a rolled or folded napkin.
• Scatter edible flower petals around the edge of your dinner plates.
• Serve pink lemonade or add a little cranberry juice to Sprite. Accent your drinks with flower ice cubes. They especially look pretty in Raspberry Ginger Ale. Place an edible flower like a violet or pansy in each ice cube compartment, and freeze. The kids and I pick them to make jelly and syrup but also so we will have plenty for drinks. Wash them gently and place on cookie sheets to freeze for using in ice cubes later on, then gently put them in Ziploc bags.
• Use edible flowers such as violets, pansies, nasturtiums, lavender, chives, fresh strawberry blossoms, and the romantic touch of rose petals to decorate dips, sauces, and desserts. As with all flowers, make certain that they are chemical free; wild roses may be the only choice for some this year, but if you have a sunny location, plant some roses just for garnish. Red or pink roses usually are more flavorful—the old time fragrant varieties by far the most flavorful, but the petals from any chemical free rose are a lovely, romantic touch to drinks, sauces, desserts, and honey.
• I’ve frozen the pink pansies in ice cubes for pink lemonade and punch, placed them in salads, painted them with egg white and dusted them with sugar to preserve them for on top of white coconut cake and for garnishing other plates.
• Add pansies to your garden salad or use to decorate a lovely cake.
• Use herbs such as chives, dill, mint, oregano, basil, thyme, parsley, salvia, and sweet woodruff and scented geraniums to garnish your plates.
• Freeze mint and sweet woodruff in ice cubes for iced tea.
• To flavor honey for a breakfast treat, warm your honey on the stove with rose petals, lavender, mint, orange or lemon peels, cinnamon, ginger, sherry, raspberries…. Let it sit for a week before using. Another of my breakfast treats is rhubarb over waffles, pound cake, or over ice cream for dessert. Just add sugar and cook till tender and thickened. It’s beautiful.
• If you have a vegetable garden, pick baby carrots and squashes, leaving some green attached. Steam them lightly and then tie 3 or 4 carrots together with leek and rest them on the yellow or green baby squash.
• For a healthy and pretty dessert, poach skinned pears in Burgundy wine (leaving the stem attached) and serve with cheese or flute whipped cream around on each plate. I also like to poach my pears (peeled, cored from the bottom, with the stem attached) in 1-2 cups white wine or sherry, 1 cup sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, and a little lemon juice. I serve them in raspberry purée with fluted whipped cream, raspberries and mint for garnish. It is a beautiful light dessert.
• For making salads, use Regina’s Red Wine Vinegar.
• Blend frozen orange juice in blender for a frothy morning drink.
• Dip purple grapes in egg whites and roll in sugar to garnish cake or pastry.
• Cut oranges into a basket shape with handle and fill with cranberries or pretty jello salad.
• Marinate meat in olive oil and oregano, and then grill.
• Drizzle chocolate on a plate, place frozen ice cream ball rolled in coconut, garnish with raspberries and mint.
• Make dressing and tuck under skin of chicken.
• And in all things, allow all the kids to help you create and enjoy your time together.
 
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