The Dandelion Celebration...Any one read it?

Sons sounds good. there is a honey dandelion fritter recipe in the book, I think it could be used there also.

I will put the syrup on my list of things to do in the future. I dont have enough flowers now. in the future I will.

You can use the flowers, the greens, and the roots.
the greens taste like spinach, salad, chard, any kind of green.
The greens get a little bitter after the flowers come up. it is best to get them before the flowers come up, but you can cook them in two changes of water to take the bitterness out.

Greens: Boil, steam, fry, eat raw. use them like any other green. makes a good tea.
Flowers: fry, boil, bake, raw. make fritters, omlettes, muffins, bread, wine, syrup.
Roots: boil, roast. Makes a good medicinal tea, makes a coffee like drink when roasted and brewed.

I don't bother drying carrot roots. My rabbits won't eat the carrots themselves but they love the tops. I'm always picking carrot greens (aka, Queen Anne's Lace) for them. Their favorite treat is green apple or mulberry branches, rose brambles (I have a thornless multiflora rose) and raspberry leaves are a close second.

Dan do you have to buy pellets or are you taking care of the feed needs for the rabbits on your land?

does the book say how do you dry the roots?

can I just wash them and put them on my window sill to dry? I don't have an oven right now so I can't roast them.

I'd like to keep the dried roots to add to tea, what else can I do with the roots after they are dried?

45, I would have to go back and look over the chapter to tell you how to dry them. I did not give too much attention to that chapter, because my roots are still young from being transplants. In a year or two i will be revisiting that chapter.

I will try to skim the chapter again and see what I can dig up (no pun intended) for you.

I dried the leaves by cutting them and leaving them on the window sill.

City Bound, I feed pellets and try to supplement with as much "wild food" as possible. Since I have been working (I didn't have an outside job when we first started with the rabbits) I haven't had the time to gather wild food every day for the small herd (somewhere around 16 now, IIRC). You have to be real careful about feeding green foods this time of year. The plants contain a lot of water (from our non-stop rain) and too much at once can actually kill a rabbit that is not used to the lush green plants. If I don't have to work this afternoon and it's not raining buckets I'll cut some fresh grass and pick some dandelion flowers for the bunnies. Chances are very high that it will be raining buckets and I won't get the grass cut or flowers picked. (I cut tall grass with a pair of scissors and give each rabbit a very tiny bunch)

There are some dandelion recipes in Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons. I haven't tried any yet although my grandmother made an excellent dandelion wine.

Dan, what dies it cost you a year to feed the rabbits, and how many do you have?

45, I checked the root chapter and it did not tell you how to air fry for tea, only how to roast them to make a coffee or how to cook them to eat.

http://www.amazon.com/Dandelion-Cele.../dp/1879863510

jim

This is a great thread. I have one field full of dandelions right now. Hope to make some syrup and some wine.

Any good tried and tested wine recipies you want to share?

17, I forgot to count the one in the house. Around $7.50 a week for pellets, figures out to around $390 a year. Wow! I never realized it was so much!

Little, they are coming up like crazy all over around here. I made a cassarole with the flowers today, and I tried making the pickled flower buds recipe from the book. It take a month for the pickles to be done, so I dont know if they are good.
The fritters though, wow, I love them.

I can not tell what the green part of the flowers tastes like, but it reminds me of some veggetable I have eaten.

Dan that is lot of dough to feed those rabbits. I want to try to raise rabbits so I bought a book on how to take care of them and it has dampened my enthusiam. I would have to take care of those rabbits better then i take care of myself, and they are such picky eaters.

The prices on this link are totally insane. I paid $10 for my book. I dont recall where i ordered it from. The price on the books says $10.95. Where amazon got those prices I dont know, but they are absurd

Reasonably priced transplants are available at our place.

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Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

I made dandelion liquer last year - steep fresh dandelion flowers (petals only, no green) in vodka for 6 months along with the peel from one small lemon. Strain, sweeten to taste with sugar or honey. delicious!

Served roast dandelion hearts as part of easter dinner this year. Dig the dandelion plant, trim off the root and the greens, leaving the center 'base' or 'heart'. Soak/wash/rinse several times. Cut into 2" pieces, more or less. Saute in olive oil w/chopped garlic, season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon juice or vinegar. Good!

I like dandelions, and have never understood why people spray them and consider them a weed. I'd like encourage them to grow, but don't know how without changing the soil calcium. Will they just grow? It seems like we should have a huge dandelion seed bank by now, but only a couple come up every year.

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Cath both of your preperations sound good. I like the idea for the hearts the best. MMMMM.

heritage, I am not sure why you are not getting dandelions. They just grow like crazy here. The fields are covered in them. Yesterday i went to my neighbor's yard and filled half a five gallon bucket with flowers. I could have picked more but that was all that I needed. the great thing is that you go out again the next day and there are tons of new flowers all ready to be picked. I go picking in the afternoon when most of the new flowers are open and proud.

Are there dandelions growing in fields and yards around the area where you live?...that might tell you if it is just your land or the total area that is lacking in Dandies.

The fields rarely have them, the neighbors yards don't really have any either. There is one yard with loads, though. But, the dandelion seed heads emit a bunch of seeds, one would think they'd be all over the place.

__________________
I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

Heritagefarm, I know one way to get rid of them is to add lime to your soil. So it would be reasonable to assume that making your soil slightly more acidic would cause them to grow better. I like my dandelions too. There's nothing prettier after a long cold winter than to see those little drops of sunshine setting on the lawn.