Rainbow vegetables with soba noodles

Tips for using edible flowers:

• Picking flowers for eating is much like identifying fungi: ensure you know exactly what the flower is, don't make assumptions.
• Don't use poisonous flowers such as anything from the nightshade family (potatoes, aubergines, peppers). 
• Take into account where you found it: for instance don't pick flowers by the roadside where they have been subjected to car fumes or pets.
• Pick only unsprayed flowers from a trusted garden rather than from supermarkets or flower shops.
• Only use flowers in prime condition.
• Remember you won't get fruit if you eat the flowers of courgettes, beans and squash (but they are so delicious you may want to sacrifice a few vegetables).
• It's best to pick in late morning: the dew will have lifted so they aren't soggy, but the sun won't have started to dry out the petals.
• Watch out for bugs: enclose the flowers in a paper bag and most insects will crawl out. For edibles like courgette flowers, prise open the flower carefully and look inside. 
• Remove the stamen from larger flowers.
• Cut off the bitter white part of the rose petal. 
• If you are unused to eating flowers, don't eat too many.

Flowers to try:

Recipes:

Three cornered leek and cornflower potato salad

Rose and cucumber chilled soup

• Use La Ratte or waxy potatoes.
• Baking rather than boiling the potatoes dries out the flesh for a fluffy interior. To further dry them, you could bake them on a bed of coarse salt, a technique used for another great dish - the Canary Island style 'papas arrugadas'.
• Use a special sieve called a 'tamis', a potato ricer or fine sieve.  On no account use a blender or food processor, which turns mash into glue. 
• Use half as much butter as potato, so weigh the potato once baked and peeled.
• Continually beat in the cold butter otherwise the butter melts and the dish becomes greasy.