Dandelion Bread - You Have to Try This, It's Scrumptious!

As I've mentioned several times recently, I've been planning to make some dandelion bread from the abundance of dandelions we always have in our yard and in the field behind the house. Well, we finally to got to try it.

I had plenty of help picking the dandelions. They look so serious in this first photo, like they are on a very important mission.

Here is our harvest.

I took these in and pulled of the stems and leaves and then washed them. I then meaured them and there were about three cups of flowers.

Then I cut the bottom off each flower so that I was left with mostly the yellow part. I didn't worry about it if a little green got in with the flower, I just didn't want those large green parts mixed in. This left me with almost two cups of flowers petals.

After lunch the kids helped mix up the batter for dandelion bread.

Batter in the pan, waiting to go in the oven.

And here's the final product!

Absolutely delicious warm from the oven with butter and honey! I also had some toasted this morning and it was yummy that way too.

And now here's the recipe.

4 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 - 2 cups dandelion petals

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup honey

2 eggs

2 2/3 cups milk

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine dry ingredients, including dandelion petals, in large bowl. In seperate bowl mix milk, beaten eggs, honey and vegetable oil. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Pour batter into two greased bread pans. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Check for doneness. If not quite done lower temperature to 350 and continue baking, checking every five minutes.

Enjoy!

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An Hour of Sunshine, Flowers and Fun

 Between morning grocery shopping and preschool drop off/pickup and afternoon schoolwork and physical therapy appointment, Amanda, Michael, Lauren and I got to spend almost an hour outside enjoying the beautiful sunny warm weather today.

Michael, Lauren and I walked around the yard and looked for little wildflowers and for buds on the trees.

Strange as it may seem, I was excited to see that the dandelions are starting to bloom.

And why am I happy to see these "weeds"?

 Because I want to try  my hand at making some Dandy Muffins and Bread, Dandelion Jelly, Fried Dandelion Blossoms, and Dandelion Gravy.

Michael tried to climb a tree but didn't get very far.

We found an empty birds nest in a tree . . .

. . . and a ladybug on the ground.

 Amanda watered the rows where I planted seeds Saturday. I'm in a hurry to see little green shoots instead of plain old brown dirt.

Michael, Lauren and I walked across the field to see the cattle. There were some very cute little calves out there.

After a run back across the field . . .

. . . they both collapsed on the ground because they were so "tired".

I took this as my cue to announce it was storytime and then naptime.

But this hour of sunshine and fun was such blessing in the middle of a busy day.

Treasure Hunt - Finding the Signs of Spring

I suggested to the kids this morning that we walk around our yard and see how many signs of spring we could find. Most of the kids loved the idea, a couple weren't interested and went on with their own play (which involved digging in the dirt.)

Here is my merry band of treasure hunters.

First, we found these little purple flowers. I'm not sure what they're called but they are very small and delicate and pretty.

We found buds on this tree.

There were lots of dandelions.

There were clumps of these little white flowers by the front porch.

There are buds on the lilac bush. . .

. . . and delicate new green leaves on another little bush growing by the fence.



It was a fun way to spend a spring morning.