Yes, weeds in the plural, dandelions to be specific. Hannah and I were out on an errand, and I was telling her about a recipe for dandelion bread that I had just read about (in Langdon Cook’s foraging book Fat of the Land – anybody seeing a trend here? However I can guarantee I won’t be diving down to the bottom of Puget Sound to spear lingcod anytime soon.) Of course she was delighted by the idea of cooking with flowers, so we kept our eyes out for a good patch. We found some huge dandelions out beside a sketchy Chinese restaurant and filled the only vessel we had handy – mom’s hat.

Back in the kitchen, the process of picking the yellow petals from the flower head was a bit tedious, but got easier as I refined my technique. I needed to get a full cup of them, which was no small feat, and Hannah lost interest pretty early on in the project. The bread was a basic quickbread, and the dandelions only seemed to add color (though a lovely color it was), and apparently also a ridiculous amount of vitamins. The flavor was pretty plain, and next time, I’d add some cinnamon, or maybe lemon zest. Fortunately we had some tasty lemon curd from the Bent family pantry, and it made the perfect accompaniment.

I’m also thinking that dandelion petals could go into pancakes or scones just to sneak in a little extra nutrition and interest from the kids, but only when I have an extra half hour to kill. The recipe is after the break.

Dandy Bread / Muffins
From Fat of the Land by Landon Cook
Adapted from Peter Gail’s The Dandelion Celebration

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dandelion petals, greens discarded
1-1/2 cups milk
4 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg

Combine dry ingredients with dandelion petals. In a separate container mix together the liquid ingredients. Mix into dry ingredients and stir to just combined. The recipe said to bake at 400°; we did mini-loaves and they scorched a little bit. You might want to try 375°. Mini-loaves will take 20 – 25 minutes; a full loaf will take a bit more.

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There have been some questions as to what ever became of that box of green tomatoes we put away awhile back. They were all very hard and green when they went into the box, wrapped with newspaper, and when we checked a few weeks later (almost three weeks later, according to the timestamp on the photo) we had some turning red. At that point we had to do some editing, because some were also going moldy.

Well, the nice thing about a box of green tomatoes is that eventually you forget about it. Another few weeks passed, and we opened the box and found that they were all red and ready to eat. Not a nice fire-engine, candy apple, fresh from the vine in August red, but red enough to call it a tomato, look it in the eye, and maybe cook it in a sauce with some pasta or throw it on a pizza (which is what we did).

Thanksgiving came and went, and this pile of semi-red tomatoes wasn’t going anywhere, and they were starting to get dangerously soft. I had just read in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that they dried a lot of their tomato crop, so I turned to the internet to learn about oven-drying them (as there is no sun to be found these days.)

Turns out it was a pretty easy process. I sliced the tomatoes down to about 1″ wedges, and then (with Hannah’s enthusiastic help) squeezed out the excess liquid and seeds. They were lined up on a cookie sheet and put in a warm oven (180° is as low as ours goes) for about 10 hours one day. I turned off the oven at bedtime and removed a few that were done at that point. The next morning it took another couple hours to finish the drying, getting to about the dryness of a raisin. Now I have them in a paper bag, distributing the excess moisture and drying out a little more. I think I’ll keep them in a jar of oil in the fridge.

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