Congrats! What roses did you use?

Virginia

I mixed and used Kazanlik, Autumn Damask, Therese Bugnet, Honorine de Brabant, Souviner de Brod,Golden Wings, Ferdinad Pichard, Lilian Austin, Mr. Lincoln, Rose du Roi. I used like one or two flowers from each bush, and took the white bitter end off. I tried to use just the most fragrant roses. Out of the ones that had flowered. :)

Thats neat. Did you have to use any food coloring? I made honeysuckle jelly one year with all the wild honeysuckle growing in our woods. I might try making the rose petal jelly sometime.

No I didn't use any food coloring. Also the recipe said the water would be an off color and only turn pink when you add the lemon juice, but mine stayed pink the whole time. It did seem to brighten when I added it though :) I guess I used the right rose petals. I did use less sugar than it called for by a half cup. Might use a little less more sugar next time, although it was awesome with the biscuit, it's sweet by it's self.

How was the honey suckle jelly? I never would have thought of that! The rose jelly was really easy to make, plus I wanted to prove that my roses were more than just pretty flowers to my DH :) I also going to make some rose hip jam and maybe some syrup. Rose hips are high in vitamin C.

That honeysuckle jelly/ marmalade looks great! I might have to try...I got some blooming now :) This is my first time making jelly-period. I have made fig preserves. I don't can/jar much, but am trying and want to do more and different stuff. I love how you put the honeysuckle vine in your picture :)

I made nettle soup as a first course for dinner yesterday and mixed the finished soup with chopped ramsons (also called buckrams, wild garlic, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic) and DH and I agreed that it was the most delicious soup we've had in a long time, really gourmet taste.

I make nettle soup every spring but haven't made anything with roses yet. The latest issue of the Swedish Rose Society journal has four pages rose recipes from rose water to rose cookies and rose muffins.

I need to try to make fig preserves. I have 2 huge LSU purple fig trees now. My fat black rooster jumps up as high as he can ,about 4 ft and gets the lower figs lol. I get all the higher ones. Ditto on the dwarf black mulberry tree which has mulberries now.

Mariannese, Your soup sounds delicious! What kind of nettles do you use to make soup? The only kind I have in my yard are the stinging kind back by the barn water faucet. They come up every spring and they are evil lol !! I learned the hard way not to wear sandals back there :/

Has anyone tried making sugared rose petals? I saw that on pinterest once.

Todays harvest of mulberries from my dwarf tree..minus prob half a bag that me and the chickens ate lol. They are almost as sweet as blackberries!

I hope marianesse pipes in with her exact method, but as a long-time forager, I can say that it's probably what you have: stinging nettle. One uses the young shoots. Older nettles can also be used as boiling destroys the stinging aspect. I'd use the young shoots to start. It's really nice to use something weedy to make a delicious dish. I just wish I like garlic mustard more. Wild spinach aka lamb's quarters also makes some mighty fine eating.

It must be wonderful picking fresh figs. Aldi's has a nice fig jam, but too sweet for me. the rose and honeysuckle jams sound so subtle.

Yes Marianesse we must get your exact recipe :)

sultry_jasmine_nights I think I have some mulberry around here- not sure will ask the DH- so you cook them? They taste similer to black berries? I think my dad talked of them like they were nothing- a weed, no purpose, guess he was wrong!

I have me a fig tree started- I wonder how long until I get fruit? The fig preserves I made were off of someone else's tree. There tree got cut down by someone/ kin trying to help , so no figs for a while...

Your recipes sound incredible, I always hope someone will open a little restaurant with those kind of natural ingredients and culinary skill. Over a years time I perfected a buttermilk biscuit recipe with a friend. We ate hundreds of biscuits, some with yogurt (rubbery texture ) but a touch of sour cream made them PERFECTO . then I moved and lost my recipe. Oh well , start over.

This will be the first year I can't harvest my roses and I'm incredibly disappointed not to be making rose recipes. Because of the increasing bugs and disease I bought Bonide Rose RX. The label says it is for the organic garden yet it has all kinds of warnings. Guess I'll have to research more to see what the residual effects if any are.

We use the stinging nettles! Hopefully you won't be afraid to try picking them anyway. Ideally they should be picked while they are still more purple than green and don't sting yet but my husband was a little late in harvesting so he wore gloves and used scissors. He cut off the end shoots with about 3-4 top leaves. Then I rinsed them well in the kitchen sink and picked over them for any debris, usually pine needles here, wearing rubber gloves. Then I boiled them for 15 minutes in lightly salted water and drained them before mixing the wilted leaves to a very bright green purée. I use my usual green soup recipe, sautée the mixed leaves first in a little butter, thicken with flour and add a chicken bouillon cube and water. Add a little pepper but no other spice, but a little chives or spring onions if you have some instead of the ramsons I happened to have. Julia Child's recipe in her French cookbok is another very good recipe I use sometimes, with potatoes instead of flour as the thickening agent.

This is the first of the spring green soups, the next will be sorrel, just coming up. With sorrel I follow Julia Child's recipe.This soup will be gray-green and not the vivid green of nettle soup. Next soup again will be with chervil. We serve all green soups with egg halves.