The dandelion flowers have a myriad of uses. The entire head can be used in fritters, tempura, and soup. We add the petals to bread, muffins, vegetable burgers, smoothies, salads, and omelets. This year we are trying dandelion wine. We took some ideas from a variety of recipes and decided to try the following:

For a little more than a gallon of wine:

1. Fill a one gallon milk jug with dandelion petals and empty it into a bowl.
2. Poured a gallon of boiling water over the petals and leave it for three days.
3. After filtering the water with cheese cloth, warm the liquid and mixed in eight cups of sugar.
4. After the liquid cools, add the juice from four oranges and four lemons.
5. Mix a package of wine yeast with a small amount of warm water as instructed on the package. Add it to the dandelion wine.
6. Pour everything into a glass gallon jug and stop it with an air lock.
7. Leave the jug in a dark place for at least 2 months.

Hopefully, this will come out well—we have never tried this before. But dandelion wine has a long pedigree, so we are hopeful. Click on the image for a larger view.