Christine’s homegrown dandelion root coffee experiment
By Christine Paris
She’s eating food grown and produced within a 200 km radius for 30 days of April in the Happyzine Eat Local Challenge.
The cat, Sam, and I are doing the 200km eat local challenge. We live in Whakamarama near Tauranga in the sunny Bay of Plenty on a lifestyle black of ¾ acre. We could not convince anyone else in the household to do it with us not even Sam’s cat friend Allie who also lives with us!
Sam will be eating offal from local lamb and I will be eating eggs from my chooks, local lamb and beef, home grown veges and fruit sourced from my own property and local neighbours.
This past weekend I got creative and decided to try home grown dandelion root coffee. A little bitter but not a bad substitute and so good for you apparently. The basic steps are:
- Harvest dandelion – roots run deep into the ground. (Best time of year to harvest is winter).
- Cut off the roots.
- Wash roots thoroughly.
- Chop coarsely.
- Grind in a food processor.
- Roast at 150 degrees C for 2 hours with oven door slightly ajar
- Grind in a coffee grinder
- Store in an airtight container
Use 1 Tbsp of dandelion root per cup of hot water and make in your coffee pot as you would coffee. Add milk and honey to taste.
I may not be able to give up coffee for the whole month though. Choosing only one grain will be another challenge – I have decided to choose rice since I can have that for breakfast like a porridge and with vegetables as a stir fry. Sam I am sure will do fine!
Christine
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Tags: eat local, eat local challenge
Hi Christine,
I love the idea of trying dandelion root as coffee substitute. I must try that sometime. Happy to see you do things that are good for you and the environment.
Julie
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Hi Christine, Looks like I am going to have some fun reading about what you will come up with next. Dandelion coffee this is new to me, I’ve heard about wine being made from dandelions. Food for thought. Will check out your faceBook for your next posting. Thank you!
Laurie
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Good luck with that Flower. I was a popular lad when I first went to Germany with the army because my folks at home sent me some instant coffee now and again. That stuff was like gold dust. I gather that they drank ‘ersatz’ coffee during the shortage made from ground acorns. Not very appetising!
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HI!
Great challenge. If it ever stops snowing and the sun grows dandelions, we’ll try your tea!
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