Thanks all! I have done the same EJ. I love cooked nettles. I like dandelion tea also, but i really don't have to drink it because we eat it. Roots and all. Plus i have 21 bottles of dandelion wine fermenting to perfection. the tea i love, and i mean love is chickweed tea. You don't even need honey or sugar with it at all to drink,,its great.
catching up here and want to thank you biita for all the great info. i usually cook dandelion leaves with bits of bacon and mushrooms. i love your 'Cayenne Sauce'. hubby loves Cayenne Pepper, so i just know he'll love this. i used to make dandelion wine many years ago and it was so delicious. i have been making mostly plum and blackberry and elderflower wine lately. could you share your dandelion wine recipe, please?
No problem what so ever. Dandelion Wine 10 liter bucket or 10 quarts 5 liter water or 5 qt. 5 liter dandelion tops, absolutely no stem. I do leave on some of the green bottom, but try to pinch most of it away. 1 1/2 kilos of sugar or i think thats 3 lbs. 1 lemon zest and the juice. The zest can not have any of the white pith to it. 2 oranges zest and juice. Same as the lemon 9 grams of fresh yeast and one slice of toasted whole wheat bread. Pick your dandelions and do as above, leaving only the petals and as little green as possiable. Boil your water, and put the blossoms in your bucket and pour the water over. Stir. Cover with a towel or a very loose lid. Stir 3 times a day for 3 days. 4th day strain your liquid to another bucket. Now take some of the liquid and boil with the lemon zest, juice and sugar. Add to the bucket and let cool almost completely. Then add the yeast spread on the toast and let it float in the liquid. Let this stand for 2-3 days depending on how hot is in your house. If its chilly let stand 3 days. After that, strain the liquid back to the first bucket, getting rid of the waste floating around. Let stand 1 more day, then strain again into your bottles and seal. Don't drink for at least 6 months but its better if let stand for a yr. In place of the sugar i have used honey and combination of honey and sugar. It depends on your tastes... I like it all! Also i don't think i need to remind you that all buckets need to be klorin clean or some kind of bleaching. Your bottles if using recycled bottles which i do, need also to be very clean. I use the corks to seal. It sounds like alot of work but its not. Besides its so worth it. It has a taste of pure sunshine on a sunny summer day! And we can use all that we can get in the winters up here,,,,lol. Enjoy!
thanks so much biita. looks like a good recipe. i use recycled bottles too. i haven't tried using corks yet. now i'll have to wait till spring for the flowers to appear! but that's ok! our apples, pears, and plums are going to be ripe within the end of the month so that'll keep me buzy!
My mom use to add Dandelions to her spinach or turnips or mustard greens to stretch her greens to make more.She also cooked them by themselves and put tender leaves in a wilted salad.I have forgot the taste of them I remember I liked them.
I say, Biita, your recipe looks a lot easier than the one we used when we made dandelion wine in '96. It was drinkable after 7 years, and very good last year. The worst part was pulling the petals off the green bottom.
Dandelion greens are awesome cooked. But remember they should be the spring greens, after that they get bitter. Droopy, with this recipe you can leave on the green bottoms, but i just use a knife and cut off most of it down to where i see the bottoms of the petals. Just can't have any stems or pieces of stems in it. But it is easy, and the wine is very good after a yr. 7 yrs,,hola... It better have been good after waiting that long,,,,lol. but this is a very basic recipe, using the old time skills. You can use the new wine yeasts or champange yeasts. But i keep going back to this one, over and over.
