How many times have you ever stepped upon or over these little deserving plants that taste so delicious and are ever so nutritional…with multiple uses.
They were imported into our country as a food crop & now are thought of as a weed
Here is my digging stick for getting dandelions. I like the stick to be about 1” in diameter and maybe a foot long if not a bit more. We all know what dandelions look like so I did not take a picture of the flower. They are those annoying plants that seem to infest our yards and the likes. We all know them by the yellow flower and the arrow shaped leaves. Thankfully there are no poisonous look-a-likes for this species of plant. The meaning of the plant in French is “Lions Tooth”. This plant also has many medicinal uses, even though I will avoid discussion of them for our topic.
Chicory and wild lettuce also resemble dandelions in the spring and are also edible. The milky sap can be used as a improvised glue of sorts? It has been proven effective in removing warts, soothing sores and bee stings and blisters for some. The flowers are used in home made wines as well. Picking these before the flower’s blossom results in the best tasting plants.
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If there is one thing I must convey here is that if you are unsure of what you are touching or going to consume DO NOT ** get the correct books or do the research before you venture out. As in most cases a very small nibble or portion could/can kill you. **
Younger ones (plants) may not have the arrow shaped definition just yet. These I feel are somewhat tastier in my opinion. These leaves are excellent added to salads. Just try to get them before the yellow flower develops or otherwise they can be bitter tasting. Or you can boil them a couple of times in the summer and fall to improve their taste as well. The leaves have a higher nutritional value than any commercially produced vegetable one can buy. Just make sure you harvest them away from roadsides or known places where one uses pesticides.
Here my daughter is demonstrating how the digging stick is effective in the plants removal.
Here she is with the plant removed; this is a mature plant even though I feel the leaves on these mature ones are bitter. You can boil them to improve their taste if so desired, kind of reminds me of spinach. I intend to use just the roots this time for a coffee substitute. Not sure if you can see how more arrow shape defined a mature plant leaves are.
Here you can compare the new & old side by side before my consumption. The young leaves may go into a salad for lunch. The mature ones I will only use the roots as well as all the roots from the others for either boiling or a coffee alternative. The roots if found are edible all year long.
The roots are OK tasting boiled. To make the coffee substitute you first roast the roots and then grind them. You can than steep them over water and there you have your coffee substitute. I have never tried this yet, as this is the purpose here. I even read somewhere once that the root of goats beard can also be roasted and ground to make a coffee substitute. Goat’s Beard resembles a dandelion head when the white seeds are blossoming except it has holes in the pattern like a waffle ball effect. In my area they are not very common.
Here I tried to clean the roots as best as one could. I gently scraped the side of a knife broad side the roots to hopefully remove any excess soil.
Here are the cleaned roots in preparation to being roasted or in this case I am going to bake them until brittle in the oven. Or you can boil them at this point and consume them in this manner also.
Here the roots are before grinding and brewing for my coffee. This pile of roots after grinding maybe yielded a teaspoons worth. I left out the grinding pictures as I really broke it up into the finest pieces I could.
I wonder if you could use it to dye wood…LOL
So here is my homebrew coffee… so the next time you have these removed, at least enjoy the fruit of your labor. It actually tastes a bit like someone added a hint of tea to my coffee. Different but unique to say the least, so give it a try!