Fried Dandelion Blossoms

Continuing my experiments in cooking with dandelions, I decided to try this recipe, shared by Gen, author of the guest post on suburban gardening, for fried dandelion blossoms.

First, you collect the blossoms!  Dandelion stems are very bitter, so you cut off all the stem, leaving only the flower (plus green flower bit/thingy underneath it, so that the flower holds together!).

Then, rinse the blossoms in lightly salted water. 

Pat them dry on paper towels.

For the batter, mix 1 cup flower, 1 cup milk, 1 egg (beaten), and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Then dip the flowers:

And fry them in hot oil!  We didn't *quite* put enough oil to make them deep-fried, but you do need a fair bit of oil.

Blotting off any extra grease is always important when frying things, I find.

Annnnd here is the finished product!!

They were great!  A lovely, fluffy texture and simple but good flavour.  We didn't feel a need to put anything on them, and just ate them plain!

I really want to get more into foraging this year.  I'm starting out with one of the most easy to find plants, dandelions, but we've had our wild edibles plant books out a lot lately, and have taken more out from the library.  On walks we've been identifying edible plants, and I think we're going to start taking a book or two with us on walks, to figure out what the plants we can't easily recognize are...

Far beside the fact that I think finding and growing your own food is a MUCH better way to do things than buying stuff from a supermarket, I just find it immensely fun.  I'll gleefully dance around outside, gathering yummy food, and have been more involved so far this year in gardening than I've ever been before.  I love cooking, and I find I also really, really love being part of the growing and/or finding process in the food that I cook.  I'm looking forward to many gardening and foraging adventures this summer...

Peace,
Idzie

A Day in the Life

Got up at eleven-something, after going to bed fairly late last night.

I checked the computer as I usually do when I first get up.  Answered emails, messages, comments, read some new blog posts and articles (I follow over 70 blogs), got up to date on the whole unschooling media freak-out that's been going on.  My mother and I shared a few different articles with each other, and talked about what's been going on... 

While I continued to do stuff on the computer, my mother went out to get some fresh bread from our favorite bakery, which I happily ate when she got home.

At four or so, Emilie finally stumbled out of bed after pulling yet another all nighter, getting up just in time for our good friend Nick to show up at the door!  We let him in (for some reason, we usually do) and in talking about gardening, growing your own veggies, and stuff like that, we finally did what we've been talking about doing for days: start some of our own seeds!!   

We planted kale, and sunflowers, and beans, and sage, and tomatoes, and lettuce...

Emi and mom rushed out the door as soon as we were done planting, since they were running late to a musical and cabaret they were attending!  Meanwhile, Nick and I headed over to his house where we cleaned out all the dead stuff from his garden, and did a bit of weeding.  Gardening like that is so relaxing: getting your hands dirty, seeing the improvement from start to finish... :-) One of the things that we pulled up from the garden were dandelions, roots intact, so I decided to bring them home and eat them! 

I love my father.  After hanging out with Nick for a little while more before meandering home, I cheerfully tramp into the house with a handful of grubby dandelion plants, and he doesn't even bat an eye.  I think he knows me by now... :-)

I haven't experimented in cooking for way too long, even though I really love coming up with my own recipes, or severely modifying an existing recipe...  But my mother had left a bowl of batter for crepes, and inspired by the fresh dandelions, I pulled out a cookbook to see how dandelion greens are usually prepared...

What I ended up doing (after cooking the crepes and setting them aside), was sauteing the dandelion greens, kale, and garlic in olive oil, adding water instead of more oil when needed, and adding slivered almonds and tamari soy sauce when the greens were partially cooked.  When done, this mixture was wrapped up in the crepes (crepes are eaten with savory fillings quite often in Quebec).  The recipe could use some tweaking, but not bad for my first try!  And dessert?  Crepes with maple syrup! :-)

As for the dandelion roots, I've wanted to try those as a coffee substitute for a while now.  So I washed them, roasted them, then ground them up and put them in the coffee maker.  Sadly, that was a bit of a fail.  Flavour wasn't bad, but I needed about three times the amount of root that I had.  Next time, I will harvest more dandelions before trying that... 

I wish I had pictures of my cooking adventures, but I'm afraid I didn't take any this time! :-(

Oh yeah, and I even cleaned up every single bit of mess I made while cooking (and trust me, when cooking, I make BIG messes!).

And that's been my day so far!  Emi and mom just arrived home, so I think I'll go hang with them for a while...

Peace,
Idzie