For her birthday Rani wanted to hang out with her friends in our garden. The timing was perfect, as I had just attended a book-signing event from authors Stefani Bittner & Alethea Harampolis on their new book Harvest.  I was eager to try something from the book and Rani’s birthday picnic became the perfect opportunity to make a goat cheese recipe with edible flowers and herbs for this soiree.

Out in the warm sunshine with a cool breeze, the setting was picture perfect for a beautiful goat cheese herb and flower presentation.  The goat cheese platter was a huge success and the girls loved it.  Accompanied with homemade lemonade spritzers and an apple spice cake, these girls had it pretty good if I do say so myself.

Anjali my gardenista daughter was my garden forager and collected all the herbs and edible flowers for the goat cheese decoration and also helped in pulling together this beautiful hors d’oeuvre.

Anjali collected pansies, lemon thyme, chives, scented geranium leaves, and blue rosemary blossoms for our edible project.

Edible Flower and Herb Embellished Goat Cheese

Ingredients:

• 1 10oz/30g log of plain goat cheese
• Edible flowers such as chive blossoms, rosemary flowers, rose petals, dianthus blossoms, nasturtiums, marigold petals, pansies, and a combination of fresh picked herbs.
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

To assemble the goat cheese platter, cut the goat cheese log into four parts. Take each 1/4 part and roll in the hand to form a round flat disk.

Place the individual disks on a platter and start pressing herbs and edible flowers onto the disks. If the stalks of the herbs are tough, then use the leaves only.

Sprinkle each disk with salt and pepper. We had some flavored salts and used that as our salts for our disks.  Lightly drizzle with olive oil. Edible flower and herb goat cheese is ready.  Serve with crackers or crostini.

For some variety, we made two more goat cheese disks and placed them in individual bowls. We made one with a splash of thick balsamic vinegar and an edible pansy flower.

We also made a goat cheese disk with lemon thyme, drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle of lemon pepper salt, a few chives, and a touch of lemon zest.  Some of our lemon thyme stalks had lovely lavender flowers, which added to the beauty of this goat cheese presentation.

Another way to jazz up goat cheese is a sweet variation with a drizzle of golden honey embellished with a pansy blossom. This tastes amazing with fig and raisin crackers.

Give goat cheese embelished with herbs and edibler flowers a try, and be prepared to have your family and guests be wowed by your presentaion.

For more ideas on how to use edible flowers, leaves, and herbs in your eats, grab a copy of Harvest.

Harvest. Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants by Stefani Bittner & Alethea Harampolis on Amazon