Sunday, April 12, 2015

Outdoors -- call me Euell

Euell Gibbons was famous for his book Stalking the Wild Asparagus, about eating wild foods.
Today I went out in the nice warm sun and fresh air and went hunting dandelions.
I don't use chemicals on my lawn, they're illegal in my town, so this was perfectly safe.
Don't use Roundup or other chemicals with 2,4 dimethyl, or you deprive yourself of an extremely nutritious food.
Dandelion is full of vitamin C and fiber, also calcium and iron.
If you have a chemical free yard, go out today. 
Find the pointy toothed leaves that gave the plant its American name.
Now look for flower buds and stalks.  The leaves of a plant that has budded are extremely bitter, like most greens getting ready to flower.  If you blanche them you might be able to get them down, but since these are free goodies, I wouldn't bother.
So you have your leaves, and the next thing you have to do is pick out the grass and other stuff you won't eat.  I got both English ivy and  ground ivy leaves in this batch.
Rinse them in cold water.
Now fry up some diced potatoes nice and brown, add the dandelion, and some India spices like garam masala, with a pinch of cayenne.  You can use eggplant instead of potatoes.
Or use your search engine for "wilted dandelion" for a hot dressing to use with them.
Cook them with mushrooms or chorizo or both.
Mangia!

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved  

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