Dandelion Banana Bread

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As spring is slowly turning into summer & all I see before me are fields of golden yellow dandelions. Ok, so maybe it’s not fields full but rather just my front yard that now has a yellow hue that has been buzzing with bees & other pollinators.

Seeing all these flowers gave me an idea & sparked a curiosity in my heart. Maybe the idea came from somewhere in my psyche. Maybe it came from Taraxacum officinale herself. Either way the idea was sparked & here we are.

It began with a gentle whisper of a thought: What if the way I’m looking at the plants around me is only seeing one side of the leaf? What if instead of seeing a yard full of weeds I realized it was a yard full of plant allies that are ready & oh so patiently waiting for me to share their healing powers with me?

As an autistic person I am all too familiar with people making assumptions about who I am & what I can do. If I’m being honest those assumptions at times are so far from who I am at my core & what I came here to do. Was I making assumptions about the plant allies I’m getting to know so intimately? It was a humbling moment when I received “yes you are” as an answer.

I know that I am a reflection of Nature & we are one in the same. I am the plant & the plant is me. What if I too am making assumptions about the plant kingdom? What if I am just placing these powerful healers in small boxes with neat little labels & not allowing the magic of Kingdom Plantae shine though?

In an attempt to always walk my talk I decided to shift the way I was looking at the natural world around me & as my Soul likes to remind me it’s time to humble up.

I choose to trust in the magic that was popping up before me & I let my curiosity take hold. The result is this delicious banana bread recipe.

There are times when a plant stands up in the forest & calls out our name. This is one of those times. Are you ready to heed the call or do you need a signier sign?

Let’s talk a bit about Dandelion & see why she’s the star of this recipe!

Taste

Sweet & the green are slightly bitter. For this recipe today we are only using the petals of the plant

Herbal Actions & Bodily Affinities

Alterative healing to eliminate excess dampness from the body & cooling down excessive heat in the system
Diuretic that is rich in potassium & helps your cells to evacuate more water. Diuretics do more than just make you have to pee but helps to cleanse the waters of your body
Improves digestion & liver function by stimulating blood flow moving stuck energy
A nutritive source of fiber, antioxidants & polyphenols helping to modulate inflammation & free radical damage
Helps restore good gut bacteria & normalizing the gut microbiome
The pollen found on the flower heads activate the immune system & can modulate immune cells & responses
Trophorestorative gradually restoring normal function to the tissues, organs & systems of the body

Energetics

Cooling
Drying
Tonifying while simultaneously opening & loosening stagnation in the tissues

Contraindications

If you are on any medications you will need to talk to your health care professionals to make sure there aren’t any drug interactions as dandelion can decrease absorption of certain antibiotics & Lithium medication
Avoid if you have an allergy to dandelions or the Asteraceae family of plants

Ruling Planet

Jupiter

Ruling Element

Water

Learn more about the Ruling Planet & Element in the Alchemical Map of Creation

Dandelion Banana Bread

When harvesting & wildcrafting plants there are a few things that you do need to do. It is important that you know if the area has been treated with pesticides or herbicides as those are areas that you would want to avoid forging. If you don’t know then ask. If you can’t ask then avoid the area & find a new one.

You would also want to avoid wildcrafting or forging near roadways as there is a chance those plants are contaminated with runoff from vehicles & other pollutants. We don’t want our medicine to make people sick because it was contaminated. It just isn’t worth the chance in my opinion.

Always make sure you are leaving plants behind for the bees, pollinators & other forgers by taking no more than 10%.

If you’ve read any of my other blog posts or watched my YouTube videos you may have noticed I typically mention the ruling planet & ruling element of a plant. There is a reason for this.

By knowing the planetary ruler of a plant & every plant has its own archetypal ruler you can harness a different sort of healing by practicing something called plant alchemy.

This is something anyone with an open mind & willing heart can practice.

Each day of the week has a planetary ruler assigned to it. A time when the planet is shining its influence strongest upon the Earth. Each day is also broken up into planetary hours as well.

Sunday → Sun

Monday (Moonday) → Moon

Tuesday → Mars

Wednesday → Mercury

Thursday (Thorsday) → Jupiter who is related to the Norse god of Thunder Thor

Friday → Venus who is related to Freyja the Norse goddess associated with love, fertility, beauty, sex, war, death, gold & magic

Saturday → Saturn

I like to use this planetary hour calculator www.planetaryhours.net to ensure I am harvesting my plants & making my medicines at the appropriate times to really harness those healing powers.

If you harvest your plants or make your medicines when the planetary ruler is shining its influence the strongest you will have that much of a greater healing effect.

What if instead of viewing the planets in the sky as celestial bodies you saw them as the archetypes that they truly are.

The 7 visible planets are the planetary bodies we can see from Earth.

Sun represents consciousness, self, ego
Moon represents our emotions, subconscious, nurturing
Mercury represents communication, intelligence, adaptation
Venus represents love, pleasure, beauty
Mars represents aggression, anger, drive
Jupiter represents expansion, optimism, higher wisdom
Saturn represents restriction, discipline, responsibility

I know that the Sun & Moon aren’t exactly plants but in this line of work they are considered to be planets.

The 3 invisible planets are the planets we can’t see them with the naked eye

Uranus represents change, freedom, innovation
Neptune represents spiritual transcendence, imagination
Pluto represents transformation, power, intense & hidden aspects of the psyche

I will be sharing more information on Plant Alchemy & working with the planetary archetypes in future posts but this is a good place to start.

For today's recipe you will need to collect some dandelion flower heads & you will need to carefully separate the petals from the flower head. This is easily done by carefully ripping the flower head in two pieces & taking your thumb nail pulling out the petals.

There are a few ways you can customize this to suit your needs & tastes I will share at the end in the notes.

Recipe

1 cup dandelion petals
2-3 ripe bananas
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
½ cup sugar of your choice
2 cups flour
½ tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking powder

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350℉ & grease your pan
Whisk bananas & sugar
Whisk in eggs
In a bowl or measuring up mix together olive oil, milk & vanilla; slowly add to banana mixture
Add in dandelion petals
In a bowl mix flour, salt, baking powder & slowly add to banana mixture
Put in pan of your choice & bake for 25 minutes or until done
Allow to cool on a baking rack & enjoy!

Notes:

You can use an infused olive oil. I used chamomile infused olive oil but you could use any infused olive oil. Learn about infusing using a double boiler HERE & an herbal infusing machine HERE
The milk can be any type of milk dairy or non dairy
The sugar can be any type, I really like to use rapadura which is unrefined whole sugar cane with a high molasses content
The flour can be any type of flour. My current favorite is a mixture of 50% white flour & 50% spelt flour.
Playing around with different edible flowers

One book I really like to refer back to is The Healing Garden Cultivating & Handcrafting Herbal Remedies by Juliet Blankespoor for different ideas & ways to incorporate medicinal plants into our everyday recipes. I did mention in the video I would share the list from the book so here it is!

Some different edible flowers you could use are: