Got Dandelion?

Written by Sherry Rothwell on April 28, 2016. Posted in Survivalism, Weed Wisdom

In my previous post, I shared about the garden you didn’t even know you had. Today, since it is liver season, I am going to share with you how to eat dandelions!

There are 5 things that excite me the most about eating weeds…

1. Weeds are incredibly nutritious, as are all green leafy vegetables. I think it’s obvious to most that greens are high-end nutrition, full of vitamins and minerals. But did you know that they are also a great source of protein too? In particular, the dandelion when you eat the whole plant (leaves, stems, roots and flowers) is a complete protein!
2. Weeds are no maintenance. They’re coming up whether you like it or not! Instead of resisting them or resenting how long they take to pick, instead you can take those weeds straight out of the garden and simply add them to salad at dinner. In fact once you know what you’re doing, you’ll discover that you have enough weeds in your yard, to have no need to buy any salad greens from the grocery store (other than in winter).
3. Weeds are free! It’s crazy to think that every day we walk past delicious, nutritious and free food, all the while imagining that it’s too expensive to really eat healthy!
4. If you know how to identify, harvest and cook with weeds, you’ll never have to worry about starving through a natural disaster or otherwise.
5. Weeds are both food and medicine. In the case of the dandelion, this ubiquitous beauty is a liver lover…..just what we need in this culture of chemicals. You can learn more about loving up your liver this spring here in this free audio training.

To help you get started (eating a weed that you can easily identify!), I’ve compiled a list of recipes below that you can use for your dandelion harvest!

You can make:

1. dandelion salad
2. dandelion milk
3. dandelion tempera
4. dandelion juice
5. dandelion green powder
6. dandelion root coffee

Enjoy the recipes!

Dandelion Salad

What you will need:
dandelion stem
dandelion leaves
dandelion flowers
salad dressing of your choice

How to do it:

1. Gather 3 whole dandelion plants.
2. Remove the roots (put aside to make dandelion coffee).
3. Fill your sink a quarter full with water and rinse the dandelion.
4. Place on your cutting board and chop into bite-sized pieces.
5. Place in salad bowl and toss with your favourite dressing.

Dandelion Milk

What you will need:
1 cup water (filtered or Spring)
3 tbsp dandelion seeds (you can soak them overnight if you can wait!)
optional: ice

How to do it:

1. Place seeds and water in a high powered blender
2. Blend for one minute.
3. Pour the milk through a nut milk bag or layered cheesecloth into a glass.
4. Optional: add ice and enjoy!

Dandelion Tempura

What you will need:
2 cups of clean dandelion flowers
3/4 cup of flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 whole egg
1/3 cup butter

How to do it:

1. Melt butter on the stove on medium in a frying pan.
2. Place the flower and nutritional yeast in bowl and mix evenly with a fork.
3. Place the egg in another bowl and whisk.
4. Take one dandelion flower, roll it in the whisked egg, next in the flour mixture and finally put it in the frying pan.
5. Repeat until the pan is full.
6. You may need to reduce the temperature from medium to a little less than that to keep your dandelion tempura from burning.

Dandelion Juice

What you will need:

dandelion stem
dandelion leaves
dandelion flowers

How to do it:

1. Gather 20 whole dandelion plants.
2. remove the roots (put aside to make dandelion coffee).
3. Fill your sink a quarter full with water and rinse the dandelion.
4. Place on your cutting board and chop into bite-sized pieces.
5. Put in your juicer.
6. Refrigerate juice and consume a 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup twice per day.

Dehydrated Dandelion Powder

What you will need:
dehydrator
dandelion stem
dandelion leaves
dandelion flowers

How to do it:

1. gather 20 whole dandelion plants
2. remove the roots (put aside to make dandelion coffee)
3. Fill your sink a quarter full with water and rinse the dandelion
4. Place on your cutting board and chop into bite-sized pieces
5. Lay out all your dandelion pieces on dehydrator trays
6. Dehydrate until crisp
7. Blend in your high powered blender
8. Put into a glass jar and store in a cool dark place such as a basement cupboard or the freezer.

Dandelion Coffee

What you will need:
a dehydrator
dandelion root
Optional: add cream and unrefined sugar

How to do it:

1. Save the roots from making all the after mentioned recipes (you can store them in a mason jar unwashed and in the fridge or you can wash and dehydrate them as you go).
2. Lay out clean roots in the dehydrator.
3. Dehydrate until dry.
4. Chop into as small pieces as you can.
5. Roast in the oven at 375 degrees F until nicely browned.
6. Blend in the highest powered blender you have until it is a fine dissolvable powder.
7. Place in a clean mason jar.
8. When you are ready to make dandelion coffee, use 3 Tbsp or more per cup of hot water.
9. Optional: add cream and unrefined sugar.

Note: if your grinder won’t grind enough for your dandelion coffee to dissolve, no worries, just strain your brew after letting it sit for a bit (a Bodum coffee maker would work well).

p.s. you can put your oven on the lowest setting to use it as a dehydrator to make the root coffee or the dandelion juice powder.

Have you tried eating dandelion yet? What is your favourite dandelion recipe?

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