Dandelion Syrup

This syrup uses the flowers from the dandelion plant and has a delicate flavour similar to honey. It can be used much the same way as other plant based syrups and best of all it costs no more than a bag of sugar!

Once you've picked your dandelion flowers you need to remove the green parts as they can discolour the syrup and leaving it tasting slightly bitter.

Dandelion syrup

Ingredients

2 cups dandelion petals

4 cups boiling water

2 - 3 cups granulated sugar

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Method

Wash your dandelions and leave to dry to remove any bugs hiding in there.

Remove all the green parts of the dandelion heads. You can slice the green parts off with a knife or scissors if you find it easiest. I let the petals close up a bit then gripped them all together, making sure not to hold any green parts, twisted a bit and pulled them off and that worked quite well for me. You'll need about 4 cups or so of dandelions to get 2 cups of petals.

Add the petals to the pan with the boiling water and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Take of the heat, cover and leave to stand overnight or for 8-12 hours.

Strain out the petals from the water and squeeze out the petals, this should leave you with about 3 cups of dandelion water.

Put the water in the pan with the sugar and lemon juice. I only had 2 1/2 cups of sugar in the house so I used that amount, more sugar will give you a thicker syrup. 

Bring to the boil whilst stirring until the sugar has dissolved, cover and reduce to a simmer.

Simmer for around 2 hours, stirring occasionally. To check the consistency, get a little bit on a spoon, allow it to cool a bit and dip your finger in. Once you're happy with the consistency remove from the heat.

Allow to cool slightly and pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Wild Garlic Soup

This soup is one of my favourite things to make with wild garlic. It's vibrant green colour really reminds me that spring is here, things are growing and colour is appearing everywhere! This soup broke my immersion blender! Even though the garlic was chopped fairly fine I'm assuming it got tangled around the blade so I reckon you'll be best off using and actual blender unless you have a sturdier stick one than I did!

Wild garlic soup

Serves 4

Ingredients
2 large handfuls wild garlic, roughly chopped
3-4 potatoes, cubed

1 onion, chopped
4 cups veg stock

Squeeze of lemon

Oil
Salt and pepper

Optional:
Wild garlic pesto
Toasted pine nuts

Method
Heat a little oil in a saucepan over a medium heat, add in the onion and potatoes, coat in the oil and fry gently for a few minutes, stirring regularly. 

Add the veg stock, bring to the boil and simmer until tender.

Add the wild garlic, salt and pepper and continue to simmer for a couple more minutes.

Blend, add a squeeze of lemon and serve.

Toast pine nuts in a frying pan for a couple of minutes and top with a blob of wild garlic pesto and toasted pine nuts.

Wild Garlic Pesto

This recipe is actually pretty tricky for me to write even though I've made it loads. I usually make a big batch to fill up a few jars. I start with a basic recipe and just keep adding extra of everything until the food processor is pretty full. Pesto is traditionally made with pine nuts but in the interest of keeping the cost down I usually opt for cashew nuts. Non vegan pesto contains Parmesan, you could sub it for some nutritional yeast if you like but I just miss it out entirely.

Experiment with nuts to give the pesto slightly different flavours, try subbing in some walnuts.

Wild garlic pesto

Ingredients

2 large handfuls of wild garlic leaves

1/2 cup cashew nuts

1/4 cup olive oil

Juice of a lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Add everything to the food processor and blend. I usually start with half of the lemon juice, give it a taste and add more if i feel it needs it (which I usually do, I like lemon!). Adjust the quantities to suit your taste.

If you make enough to fill a few jars you can pour a layer of olive oil over the top to 'seal' the pesto and store in the fridge.