ROASTING DANDELION COFFEE

Roasting your root for dandelion coffee. Selection of roots: It is most efficient to use only the best roots for making coffee. Select the medium to large size roots and these are best before they have become too woody. The tiny stringy roots are more work than they are worth and the older pulpy roots take longer to roast and don't give as nice a finished product. I have many famine recipes you might say from grown up picking fruit with my parents (migrate workers) Times were tough but they never complained and were extremely honest.

Cleaning: Scrub the root well with a vegetable brush, peel the bark, removing all the dirt and scabby stuff.

SEMI HOMEMADE?

Roasting: Place the roots on a cookie sheet and put them in a 350 degree oven. After about 1/2 hour a lovely chocolaty smell will begin to emanate from the oven. Give them another five minutes and then check them for readiness. When they are brittle (like well done bacon), they are ready. The narrow parts of the root finish sooner. Break off the ready parts and put the rest back in. Check every 5-10 minutes and remove when done.

Crushing: Allow the roasted roots to cool a little and then place the on a dough board or something similar and crush with a rolling pin. Store as you would regular coffee.
Dandelion is a very powerful diuretic, its action comparable to that of the drug 'Frusemide'. The usual effect of a drug stimulating the kidney function is a loss of vital potassium from the body, which aggravates any cardiovascular problem present. With Dandelion, however, we have one of the best natural sources of potassium. It thus makes an ideally balanced diureticcholagogue it may be used in inflammation and congestion of liver and gall-bladder. It is specific in cases of congestive jaundice. As part of a wider treatment for muscular rheumatism it can be most effective. This herb is a most valuable general tonic, decoction tea, and perhaps the best widely applicable diuretic and liver tonic.
Greens are in groceries stores in the spring, but you can gather them early in the spring before they flower before the leaves split and spike or have white juice inside them. Some old timers have boiled even the old leaves first and then cook again to get the bitters out of them when they get old.

Root is the most valuable part of this plant and can be stored and dried for the winter. The North American Indians use to chew the root before battles to make them crazy and mean. Because root is too powerful and will dump out the liver too fast of toxins. But it works.
Dandelion photos:
http://rosesprodigalgarden.org/articles/how%20to%20make%20roasted%20dandelion%20coffee.html
http://greenjeane.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html
http://fruitguys.com/almanac/2011/12/15/roasted-dandelion-root-coffee

I love collecting the odd recipe that maybe lost that are very valuable for poorer times, or the ones you can't buy in a store. Some recipes are too costly for manufactures to reproduce like my green tomato mincemeat pie, so light so good and no meat...you could never tell.

I've even made dandelion jelly from the flower...
*(Powdered, teas i.e. are available) Use no dandelions that close to the road or on sprayed soil or plant...these chemicals will ruin the medicine.
posted by Sherman

 I loved my parent so much and they worked so hard and died early so my heart goes out to the needy right today.