Dandy Dandelions

The other night I fed dandelions to my family for dinner. I was starting to panic over the army of tall naked dandelion stalks marching across my property. I found myself avoiding inviting people over unless we had just mowed. I started thinking that maybe a little herbicide might be a good thing. I needed to regain control before these pests made me do something that I regretted.

So I went out and cut off their heads, deep fried them and ate them. The recipe came from the La Leche League cookbook, Whole Foods for the Whole World. You basically dip the flowers in a mixture of milk and egg, roll in flour with salt and pepper and deep fry. They were actually pretty good-tasted like any other deep fried veggie you might order at a bar with a cold beer. My daughter said they were good but had trouble getting over the fact that she was eating a dandelion. My son asked if I could send them as a school snack and ate them all up. My husband had seconds on the main dish. My youngest wanted to know if that counted as her vegetable.

I am not sure we'll be eating dandelions every day, but it did shake me out of my feelings of defeat and was a great way to launch the June "eating local" challenge. Now I am curious about what else my backyard has to offer.