Dandelions are a common sight around here as I think they are in most places. Typically they are the bane of the suburban homeowner’s existence and viewed as a prolific weed. Those of us that use plants as medicine, however, know better. We scoop up those babies in early spring and use every single part. The leaves get sauteed for dinner. The flowers get fried, put into pancakes, or fermented into wine. And the roods become dandelion root tea….
This is a recipe that I have been working on for a long time and I think I finally got the hang of it. Originally, I wanted to make a low sugar barbecue sauce, mostly because I was in the throws of a gestational diabetes diagnosis. I thought I could add sweetness with the addition of berries instead of sugar, which had previously not spiked my sugar. In this process, I found that it’s really hard to make a low sugar barbecue sauce actually taste good….
Jerusalem artichokes are a northeastern native that has always grown around the edges of the fields and roadways where I grew up. I always knew that there were parts of them you could eat, but never spent much time actually eating them. I did, however, love their flowers. Their large yellow flowers look like some kind of daisy, sunflower cross breed and are rather pretty. I love them so much that I even had them in my wedding bouquet.
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The early spring foraging in our area is starting to round down now. The morels were overheated by the ridiculous heat wave last week, the fiddleheads have long passed and the leeks, while still around aren’t as good now. And these are just a few of my favorite things. While I’m sad to see it go, I’m also excited for all the wonderful veggies about to be available in the garden.
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It’s a pretty awesome thing when morels just pop up in your back yard. It happened last year as well, but honestly, I didn’t expect that kind of luck twice. There were even more of them this year, which is super exciting. I’m not holding out hope for next year so as not to be disappointed. I know that I’m eventually going to have to learn how to actually find these guys out in the wild, but for now, this works….
