Dandelion Jelly

Good Morning friends! This morning I got it all together and made Dandelion jelly.
However I am going to start at the beginning so that if you want to make some yummy food out of the so called "weeds" in your yard you will have the recipes! So far we have used the flower and the leaves, both have worked out wonderfully!
So here we go.. first go out and pick dandelions- make sure they are not treated with anything. I also don't used the ones by the road as all the exhaust gets on them Yucko! Wash them. Then the fun begins. For jelly you need the flower heads (the yellow part) for salad  the leaves.

This is what we started with. Mikhaila did go out and get more.

The sorting begins!!  Heads of the flowers in one bowl for jelly and leaves in the other bowl  for salads!

One of many salad bowls!

We ended up with a bag of greens for salads- that bag is almost gone as Mikhaila has been eating salads for every meal!

The beginning of the flower heads that I will need for the jelly. It is slow, kind of boring to do this part. However I want to tell you that IT IS WORTH IT. The finished product is worth it, honey tasting, yummy!!

Here is the meal Mikhaila made with the first salad greens.

Recipe:
Clean your dandelions, separate the heads from stems, also you only really want the yellow flower part. When you have alot done then you will start the process for making the dandelion tea.
I worked with 2 recipes as the one did not tell me the ratio from petals to water for the tea, the second one did.
So 2 heaping cups of dandelions put in a bowl, pour two cups boiling water over them and let them steep for 30 minutes to 24 hours. I did mine for 24 hours and I had enough dandelions done so I did 1 cup of dandelions to 1 cup of boiling water until I had all the flowers steeping.
Then when you have them steeped to your liking,  you will strain the tea from the petals. I put a coffee filter in the bottom of my sieve and strained it that way. The flower petals I put in a separate bowl.
Time to make the jelly! Measure out, and put in a stainless steel pan..
3 cups of dandelion tea
4 1/2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 box powdered pectin
Add tea, lemon juice, 1 box of pectin and sugar in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and continue to boil for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and fill jars. Once they are all full and capped put them back in fr a hot water bath.
Process in a hot water bath 10 minutes for below 6000 feet
Process in a hot water bath 15 minutes for above 6000 feet

Getting the jars hot and sterilized. After they are filled they will go back in here for a hot water bath.

The jelly starting to boil.

The finished product in the light. It was darker before adding all the ingredients. Next time I will make sure there is less greens from the flower heads. They still turned out good!

I tripled the batch so here are the first ones I processed. I ended up with 10 jelly jars, 1-salsa jar, 2- topping jars ( the ones with carmel or hot fudge) and a tall olive jar. I reuse food jars for our own consumption, the jelly jars can be used for gifts.

Hope you choose to make some great jelly from the "weeds" in your yard. It gives a whole new meaning to eating local and the best thing THEY ARE FREE!!!
Hope your day is just dandy!