Tag Archives: dandelions

Happy Easter with a floriferous oxlip

April 9, 2023 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

Happy Easter 2023 with this floriferous forced Primula elatior (oxlip / hagenøkleblom) in the kitchen window. Unlike England where oxlip is a rare native plant, it was introduced to Norway in the 1800s from further south in Norway and has commonly escaped from gardens naturalising mainly in my area and further north, right to the very north of Norway. This is the first of the three Primulas to flower here, followed by Primula vulgaris (primrose / kusymre) and finally Primula veris (hagenøkleblom).

All 3 species which also commonly hybridise where they grow together, as in my garden, are considered to be edible. I mostly use them in mixed salads, the flowers decorating early spring salads. This is what Cornucopia II says about their edibility:

Another one flowering currently in the window are the forced dandelions which we’ve been eating for since January most days:

Food, Perennial vegetables

Habby-Dandy MacCheese

April 30, 2020 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

A wonderful birthday dinner yesterday!
As is the tradition since I left home, my birthday dinner has been Macaroni Cheese with rhubarb crumble for dessert. Mac Cheese was the first veggie dish I ate back in the 60s – Mum took us to Edwin Jones in Southampton (the superstore of the time) where they served it in the restaurant. We loved it and it became a traditions for Mum to make this every Tuesday! Nowadays, we use whole grain spelt macaroni with masses of greens…Hablitzia or Caucasian spinach ( stjernemelde) and dandelion (løvetann). On the top, we used dried alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils!
This one time rhubarb crumble is the only time I eat sugar each year, something I’ve kept up now for the last 20 years.
Dedicating this to my dear Mum…it’s after all her 65th birth day too!

I harvested Hablitzia from this pot in which I’d had a bay tree that died a few years back, Hablitzia self-sowed and has taken over using the bay to climb up!

Hablitzia and dandelion greens were wilted before adding to the macaroni cheese

The finished mac cheese with alpine bistort bulbils on top

…and this curious stick with 65 marks on it appeared in my postbox anonymously, postmarked Tøyen in Oslo….

Forcing, Perennial vegetables, Winter shoots, Winter vegetables

Preparing dandelions for forcing

November 27, 2019 Stephen Barstow 1 Comment

The weather was a bit milder over the last few days, thawing sufficiently so that I could crowbar dandelion roots from the frozen soil and pot them up ready for winter forcing which will give a never ending supply of delicious, nutritious midwinter greens for free later in the winter (just a little effort)!
Just:
1. Dig up the roots

2. Remove (and eat) any green leaves

3. Plant the roots in soil up to the crown and then cover the crowns in a couple of centimetres of clean sand (I use buckets)

4. Store in the coolest place possible to keep them dormant (it could also be outside if you don’t have a root cellar)

5. Move to a warmer place ( a cool room works well) a couple of weeks before you need the shoots (keep dark if you want delicious blanched shoots)

(This is the same method you can use for forcing chicory, but to my mind dandelions are even tastier and they sow themselves….and all you have to do is NOT to weed and harvest instead!)

3. Plant the roots in a container in soil up to the crown

4. Cover the crown with a couple of centimetres of sand

Delicious nutritious midwinter greens for free (just a little effort)!

Perennial vegetable shoots, Winter shoots, Winter vegetables

Snow harvest

March 25, 2019 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

It snowed all day yesterday, but it’s unfrozen underneath and spring bulbs like snowdrops (snøklokke), coltsfoot (hestehov), winter aconite (vinterblom), Crocus tommasianus and Hepatica transylvanica are in flower under the snow. Remembering where the edibles are located, I can still harvest food under the snow:

Hablitzia tamnoides, Allium carinatum, Ranunculus ficaria var chrysocephalus (lesser celandine / vårkål), Alliaria petiolata (hedge garlic / løkurt) and (forced inside) dandelions (løvetann)

Foraging

Two month early spring foragables at 63.5N

February 5, 2017 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

It was one of the mildest December / January periods here since records began in the 1800s, no snow at sea level and no snow forecast, 3-4 cm of froszen soil at the surface and that’s it. Temperatures are currently like early April and early April foragables are now available!