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This is a blog about the pursuits of Naturalist Alan Russo to incorporate all things Natural, especially Plants, into his daily life. Living close to Nature has always been a passion of mine and I try, with natures help, to live a Healthy lifestyle for myself and for the Earth.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Some Dandelion Fun

 Recently a friend asked if I could make her some Dandelion Tincture. I said "no problem" as I have lots of Dandelions growing in my, -garden to be- area. When I went out to harvest the Dandelions, there were some huge ones with lots of flowers on them. I hated to see those flowers go to waste so I picked them for lunch. I decided to make some Dandelion Fritters. I also thought I would try to make them with Coconut Flour rather than Spelt as I would normally do.
 Working with Coconut Flour can be tricky as it has no gluten to hold it together like wheat or spelt flour would. So I experimented. I had to add a lot of extra eggs to hold the batter together and a lot of extra coconut milk because the flour seems to have an insatiable thirst for liquids.I added some baking powder, some salt and gave it a shot in a hot oiled cast iron pan. It broke apart and didn't stick to the Flowers! Dag nabbit! I added more eggs and a little more flour thinking the batter was to liquidy. It seemed to work pretty well so I did the whole batch.
Dandelion Lunch!
As you can see they came out pretty good, well, good enough to eat anyway. I don't have a real recipe as I tweeked this one so many times, but I'm sure you can find a batter recipe somewhere online from someone who is better versed in the ways of Coconut Flour than myself.
 When I harvested the plants, I noticed there were lots of flower buds deep in the plant as I broke it apart to clean it. I decided to not let those go to waste either, so I harvested them, put them in a small mason jar and poured hot homemade pickle brine over them and sealed the jar. I now have Dandelion "Capers" to use in place of real Capers when I need them.
Flower Buds Ready For the Brine