Dandelions...not your average weed.

They're in fields, your yard, and your neighborhood. You've blown the fluffy white seeds and made a wish. You may have even tried to kill them with chemicals. I'm here to tell you, folks --- embrace the dandelions!!! Have you ever stopped to look at them??? They are really quite beautiful up close. Not to mention dandelions provide numerous health benefits, and have dozens of uses as both food and medicine.

We have an abundance of this lovely flower in our yard. Rather than continue to mow them over, I wanted to find a use for them. A friend pointed me in the direction of a recipe for dandelion jelly --- it seemed like a good way to use some of them up. Now, I'm pretty sure that cooking the petals and adding a bunch of sugar negates their health benefits; but the jelly is very tasty! I'm getting anxious to get into canning season, too, and this satisfied my urge (at least for now). *Update* While the original recipe says to let the jars seal themselves, due to safety reasons it is recommended that you hot water bath the jars for 10 minutes and let seal.

I used the recipe from this website. I didn't add food coloring, as the color was beautiful enough. The finished jelly tastes remarkably like honey. Who knew?!

Basket full of flowers - the kids had a great time helping pick them!

Next step was to remove the yellow petals and place them into a bowl. The original website said to cut them with scissors; but I found the easiest way to do it was to pinch the bottom of the flower and squeeze until the petals fell into the bowl. Beware! This will turn your fingers yellow!

Petals removed and ready to soak

I let my infusion of petals and water soak for nearly 24 hours. I didn't do it on purpose --- life happened and I just didn't have a chance to finish the process.

The finished product!

The recipe actually made five half pint jars. One of them was already opened and in my fridge at the time of this photo. (oops!)

Have you done anything creative with dandelions? I'm thinking dandelion wine should be the next thing we try. :)