Dandelion and Honey Bread

It's #NoMowMay and now that dandelions are filling your lawn up you need to decide what to do with all those amazing flowers bursting out of your unmowed lawn! If you like eating pre-packed mixed green salads chances are you may already be eating dandelion and not even know it. Dandelion wine, sautéed dandelion greens, even dandelion jelly are all becoming wildly popular in select culinary circles. If you had to compare the health benefits of a dandelion leaf to that of iceberg lettuce, it's like night and day.

Dandelions are some of the healthiest greens you can put in your body. They are so nutritionally dense that they far exceed the benefits of kale or spinach. They are full of vitamins, antioxidants, and potassium and work as a strong diuretic and blood detoxifier.

Seriously, as "weird" as it sounds to go outside and pick some dandelion weeds out of the ground, be weird, and try something new. Your body will thank you. You can also have the kids pick your flowers if you don't want to do it yourself. That's one perk of parenting haha.

**We DO NOT advise just grabbing dandelions from anyplace. Make sure where you harvest your dandelions has not been sprayed with weed/pest killers or recently fertilized. **

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 cup dandelion heads, (dry measure, before washing)

• ¼ cup coconut oil

• ¼ cup honey

• 1 large egg

• 1 ¼ cup milk
  

Instructions

• Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

• Trim the bulb and dandelion florets off of the stem, removing as much of the stem as possible.

• Place the florets in a colander and rinse them under running water.

• Bring a small pot of water to a boil and place the dandelions in. Submerge and let them boil for 1 minute.

• Drain florets into a colander and then rinse under colder water to stop the cooking process.

• Squeeze out as much water as possible from the flowers. I use my hand and follow up with a kitchen towel or paper towel.

• Add the florets to the dry ingredients and whisk until combined. You want to break up the clump of flower you just created in the last step.

• Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well until almost no lumps remain. The batter will be fairly wet and lumpy, but flowers should be the lumps, no dry pockets of flour please.

• Pour the batter into a greased bread pan.

• Bake at 400 degrees F for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick can come out clean.