What to do With Dandelions

After looking at all the dandelions around the neighborhood, I was wondering what dandelions could be used for. I am amazed at what I found in food, crafts, and for medicinal purposes and, of course, everyone has heard of dandelion wine!!

Here are some pictures of the little beauties... they are so fantastically yellow, aren’t they?

yellow


dandelion

My neighbor, Elaine, was my co-conspirator this afternoon in collecting dandelions for (CAN YOU GUESS?)  DANDELION WINE!!! I’m so excited about this.
We went out and collected a few quarts of dandelion flowers. It’s a LOT of dandelion collecting, let me tell you. Bend over pick one or two flower heads and stand up and then walk 2 feet and then bend over and pick one or two flower heads... etc. It’s a slow process, collecting dandelions, but we were in the sun and Elaine helped me out. Here’s a picture of Elaine... You can see the plastic bag of dandelions...

Picking dandelions

So we took them in the house and rinsed them in cold water (big mistake. It should have been lukewarm water. The cold water closed up the blossoms. Live and learn.)

clean the dandelions

Then the recipe calls for boiling the blossoms, sugar, 4 quarts of water, and the lemon juice, including some of the zest.

dandelions

It’s not looking too great right now. But surprisingly, it smells good, kinda citrusy.

boiling dandelions

I boiled this for an hour and let it cool down for about 3 hours and when it was lukewarm I added a piece of bread and covered it up with a towel. One of the recipes I was reading said you could add a slice of bread instead of yeast and since I don’t have any yeast I’m going with the bread.

Now we have to wait: In the meantime I’m going to list some recipes in case any of you want to make your OWN dandelion wine. It was really easy to get it going. The hardest part (so far) was picking the dandelions.

Dandelion Wine Recipes

These are all very similar recipes.

Mother Earth News has a simple recipe.

Twin Eagles has another simple recipe.

Winemaking Jack Keller has 3 recipes for making Dandelion wine.

Medicinal Uses for Dandelions:

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WORD OF CAUTION: Some people are allergic to dandelions. If you are allergic to rag weed or marigolds, you may be allergic to dandelions. In which case, steer clear or proceed  CAUTIOUSLY!!
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Dandelions Taraxacum officinale are an herb and are packed with Vitamin A (Beta carotene), calcium, and protein.  People use the greens, the flower and the root. The root is used as a coffee substitute. Dandelion greens are used in salads and smoothies, and the flower is used to make wine and tea among other things. It’s a natural substance, not genetically engineered. (Don’t get my sister, Carol, going on this topic).

Dandelion tea

TEA

According to WebMD  dandelion is used for “loss of appetite, upset stomach, intestinal gas,gallstones, joint pain, muscle aches,  exzema, and bruises. Dandelion is also used to increase urine production and as a laxative to increase bowel movements. It is also used as a skin toner....”.  WebMd also lists uses, side effects, interactions, and dosing. It’s worth looking at. (no monetary compensation).

Dandelion in food and drinks:

Dandelions can be eaten from top to bottom, the flower, the greens and even the root. Here are some recipes for eating and drinking DANDELIONS!!

Dandelion fritters are a specialty of Kimberley Gallagher of Learning Herbs. She has a delightful recipe for making these yellow flowers into little flower fritters. How fun is this? I love it and you will, too.

10 Reasons to Use Dandelion Greens in a Green Smoothie by Tracy Russell. Tracy talks about the incredible health benefits of dandelion greens and she has several fruit and dandelion green smoothie recipes also.

The Daily Spud wrote a post called “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em”. In this article she fries dandelion flowers  and has a recipe for dandelion tea.

The Crafty Little Gnome wrote a post called How to Make Dandelion Root Tea and she shows in pictures how to harvest the roots also.

Dandelion Pesto sounds interesting, doesn’t it? David Levowitz has a great recipe for this.

Dandelion Jelly, why not?

dandelions


OTHER USES FOR DANDELIONS:
How about dandelion soap? Is this too cool or what? Red Ted Art has a tutorial on how to make dandelion soap! I just made some Citrus Soaps last week which were so much fun to make and came out great so now I’m going to definitely make dandelion soap!! YAY! Must go out tomorrow and pick some more dandelions....

Dandelion Oil used for skin cream.

yellow

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. I sure did! Thanks for viewing.

Will keep you updated with news about the dandelion wine, too.

Best wishes,

zzzzzzC9561C493251B0E7B572C8A863B55985



Hi there and WELCOME! So happy that you came by to visit. I'm Linda.
My sister, Carol, and I have a super creative family (my nephew even makes cabin furniture) and I try to log it all
right here on Crafts a la Mode by Two Succulent Sisters.
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7 comments

  1. With all of the different ways to use dandelions, I thought that I would also mention dandelion wine chicken. A coworker told me that her mom used to use dandelion wine as a cooking wine when she made chicken, and that it was absolutely delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The allergies will prevail here.

    Does sound interesting though.

    M :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. My grandpa used to make Dandelion wine! :)

    Thanks for joining the Link Up this week!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is very cool!! Thanks for sharing...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dandelion season is upon us here...there are fields and pastures abloom with them. I've always thought they're pretty, though not so fun in the flower borders. I think I'll collect some for my green smoothie tomorrow... I've also read that dandelions help liver health.

    I had fun meandering through this post...Lynaea @ EveryDayBloom.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love that you are shining a new light on dandelions. I never got the difference between weed and wild flower. It's all in the beholder, right? You will have to do a follow up on how your wine turns out! Pinning this!

    ReplyDelete

So happy you came to visit today. Everyone is so busy but if you would like to leave a note for me, I would love it!!

Welcome

I am the crafter extraordinaire (on this blog anyway.) I live with my husband, my son, David, in a cozy cape cod style house in Connecticut.

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