The blue natural dye can be obtained from blue pea flowers.
If we are told to choose one thing it will be difficult because there will be many things that always affect our quality of life including herbs. the challenge helps me to be interested in following it one herpes for which I am very grateful especially for contributing to my life.
You can see the challenge by @theherbalhive HERE: Herbal Hive Challenge: The Herb You're MOST THANKFUL For!!.
Well, the answer to that challenge was not easy in my mind. There were a lot of herbs that influenced and made very important contributions to my life. But then, I filtered and selected some important herbs, and I arrived at the final choice.
I chose BLUE PEA FLOWERS. Indeed, blue pea flowers are not like other herbs that can be used as often as possible. But because it's not used often, that's why I chose blue pea flowers. Even though it is not used every day, it has a significant impact on my life, namely as a food coloring agent and also to prevent blood sugar from rising.
In my gallery, especially in the past, there are lots of variations of food and drink menus that I have made using blue pea flowers. From there, I felt that this flower had a very good impact on my life.
Not a Flower I Know Since Childhood
Blue pea flowers are quite easy to find in Indonesia. But unfortunately, I do not know this flower since childhood. I actually know about this flower from HIVE. Many friends from HIVE have made posts about this flower.
From there I started to find out what blue pea flowers were, and what I could make from them. In the end, I understood that this flower is very good for use as tea in dry conditions and can also be used as a food coloring.
After knowing the useful uses of this flower, I then decided to plant blue pea flowers. They are quite easy to breed. They easily propagate with vines. And they have a lot of flowers, which then develop into seeds for the next seeding process.
It's just that the leaves become quite dense. If we don't pay attention to the leaves every day, there will be pests like small caterpillars that attack the leaves. Over time it will make the leaves have white spots.
For me, pea flower plants are better cultivated wildly. I mean, try to plant blue pea flowers in some areas that we don't pay much attention to. I don't know why this actually worked for me. But, when I noticed, when I took care of this plant too much, it was like I didn't give freedom to the plant, the blue pea flower plant was more susceptible to pests. Do you guys have the same experience about it? So from that experience, I finally let the blue pea flower plant grow and reproduce by itself without checking it often. I only inspected the plant only when I was picking blue pea flowers. They eventually grew well, thriving in the area behind my house.
Beautiful Tea From Beautiful Flower
The purplish-blue color contrasts nicely with the foliage colors of their plants. It looks clean like god's creation coloring this universe. From this blue color, tea or other types of beautiful food can be created. My late mother used to drink this blue tea. That's how we named the tea from blue pea tea blue tea.
My mother drinks blue tea three times a week. My mother is a diabetic and drinking blue tea is quite beneficial and quite working for my mother. My late mother's sugar level was not too high at that time. You could say blue pea flowers are not 100% treating diabetes. But this flower does help us to prevent the increase in blood sugar. So, when our blood sugar is still normal, it is very good for several times a week we want to drink this tea to avoid the worst possible health condition in our life.
Apart from the health benefits you get from consuming blue pea flowers, it turns out that these edible flowers are also used as a beautiful drink in many cafes. They make a cold version of tea or a warm version with this blue pea flower. The magic thing is, blue pea flowers can change color when mixed with other ingredients such as lemon. We can get from light blue to pretty purple.
I also often make blue pea flower milk. I serve it with coconut milk and young coconut. Super fresh to be enjoyed as a drink in the summertime.
Iced Blue Pea Flowers Milk With Young Coconut. Full recipe HERE.
Beautiful Desserts
When it comes to drinks, especially tea, it's common. How about making a charming dessert? Of course, that's a cool thing. From pudding to ice cream. It all produces attractive colors. Increasingly increase our appetite to eat dessert.
We only need to use blue pea flowers for the natural food coloring that we will make. The trick is that we only need to make tea from these flowers. You can use dried blue pea flowers or fresh blue pea flowers. Usually, I only use fresh blue pea flowers. It doesn't affect the taste at all. So it doesn't matter if you use dry flowers or fresh flowers.
Blue pea flowers work well for puddings and ice creams, or even rice. I've made them before. My favorite thing is the blue pea flower pudding which I mix with coconut milk which produces a creamy texture.
Blue Pea Flowers Pudding With Longan Fruits. Full recipe HERE.
Blue Pea Flowers Pudding With Awesome Shape. Full recipe HERE.
Homemade Blue Pea Ice Cream. Full recipe HERE.
Beautiful Plating
Apart from being involved in making healthy drinks as well as beautiful and delicious desserts, I also involve blue pea flowers in my plating process. What I still remember to this day is that I once made a pandan cake plating using blue pea flowers.
In full, you can read my past post about how I use blue pea flowers as a plating property that can also be eaten. I turned blue pea flowers into a sauce for plating the cake.
A Pineapple Dessert recipe. Full recipe HERE.
Pandan Cakes with Mango and Butterfly Pea Flowers Sauces. Full recipe HERE.
Well, those were some of the things I did with awesome blue pea flowers. I am very grateful for the presence of blue pea flowers in my life. For me, they really color my life. Starting from me knowing nothing about natural dyes until finally, I used blue pea flowers to make a beautiful dessert that catches the eye. I am very grateful for that. And I feel very grateful that the blue pea flowers have been created in this universe.
Thank you for reading my blog and reblog if you want my blog this time worthy of reading by others.
Best Regards,
Anggrek Lestari
Anggrek Lestari is an Indonesian fiction writer who has published two major books. Now She is a full-time content creator. She has a goal to share life, poem, and food content that makes others happy and can get inspiration.
Contact Person: authoranggreklestari@gmail.com
Discord: anggreklestari#3009