Spring is the season of green, when Mother Earth knows it’s time to internally cleanse and so offers us an abundance of purifying greens in all textures and flavors. There are mustard greens, garlic greens, savoy greens, fenugreek, chicory, sorrel, spinach, chard, kale, water cress, purslane, every kind of brassica, and opportunities to forage for wild edibles right in your own local canyons and forests where you might find medicinals such as leeks, nettles and dandelions.
Sour, pungent, astringent and bitter, in varying degrees, are the tastes of Spring. Pungent greens increase digestion and circulation, aiding the body in warming up and “melting off” the cold freeze, or stagnation, of winter. Sour also aids digestion, elimination and circulation. Astringent dries and tones. Bitter is perhaps the least popular, but most important of Spring’s tastes. Made up of the elements of air and apace, foods with the bitter taste help the body detoxify, purify, lighten up, loosen up and open up the inner channels for optimal flow. Bitter tasting herbs help you eliminate waste, fight colds, reduce allergies and lose weight.
Traditional cultures instinctively knew the benefits of Spring’s bitter-tasting bounty, cultivating wonderful, easy, nourishing, home-cooked savory pies and tartes out of a variety of these free, foraged greens.
From France, Italy, Greece, and my own back yard, here are 7 delicious ways to go green this Spring ~
Photo: Gourmed.com
1. Spinach and Greens Pie (Vegan)
2. Spicy Mustard Green Pesto (Vegan)
3. Spinach, Nettles and Dandelion Tart from Provence (Vegetarian)
4. Nettle Spiral Pie (Vegan)
5. Gourmed’s Original Spanakopita (Vegetarian)
6. Sign up for my annual Spring Cleanse, an easy, at-home, three-week, guided course to nourish your body to release toxins, old material, and stagnation, to restore youthful vitality, mental clarity and luminous radiance.
7. Drink Dandelion Tea. You can make it yourself with the roots and shoots of the plant harvested from any organic lawn or garden.
To make it easy though, try Traditional Medicinals‘ newly launched dandelion teas which they are offering to send to one of you as a free gift.
“Dandelion has become increasingly popular recently for its ability to support the body’s natural detoxification process,” says the company literature. “With the trend only growing, Traditional Medicinals herbalists formulated two new dandelion teas that will be hitting store shelves this spring – EveryDay Detox Dandelion and Dandelion Leaf & Root.”
Rather than drink it as a tea, I brewed a strong half cup of the Dandelion Leaf & Root and added it to a sautée of spinach and kale, pictured below. With ginger, cardamom, a dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg, the juice of fresh lemon and the dandelion tea infusion, these greens are a potent, and deliciously, detoxifying agent. Just home from India, it’s my daily nourishment.
Want to try some dandelion tea? Please let us know in the comment section below. There is a limited supply, so we’ll pick names (blindly and randomly, of course!) by week’s end and let you know. If you comment anonymously, it’s fine. But please know we won’t be able to contact you, and won’t have your shipping address to send you your teas.
Meanwhile, I invite you to try Traditional Medicinals’ Plant Personality Quiz. It’s fun, remarkably accurate, and another reminder that nature is a mirror, a beautiful biosphere, and that you are an integral part of it.
To your pure, whole being ~ May you have all the energy, clarity, and wakefulness you need to know the beauty, magnificence and star-bedazzled interconnnectedness of the world that is here for you.
Namaste!
I’d like some dandelion tea please
Perfect timing! Thanks, Jacky.
The Spicy Mustard Green Pesto looks yummy. Thank you for the link! I have been enjoying finding dandelion plants on my daily walks and picking a few leaves for my meals. It has been fun and delicious!
Thank you for sharing that, Cheryl. I hope your daily foraging inspires others to see the beauty and medicine in our everyday wilds.
I am anxiously (and somewhat impatiently) waiting for the first Spring dandelions to peek out from under the blanket of snow. In the meantime, I would LOVE to try the Traditional Medicinal Dandelion Tea. Much gratitude for offering the chance to win this lovely gift!
Hi Lori! It’s so good to hear from you. I hope your winter melts soon, and you find yourself walking in the sweet sunshine of Spring. Love to you ~
What perfect timing to find this post! I will make your spinach & kale bowl tonight!! Unfortunately, minus the dandelion tea – but I would so love to receive some!
Thank you!
(and the quiz? I’m a Passionflower… cool!)
Thanks, Kristine. Isn’t that test fun? Thank you for being a passionflower – making the world a better place for all.
I would love some Dandelion Tea it sounds wonderful
Congratulations, Becky. You win Traditional Medicinals Dandelion Teas.
Dandelion Tea? I’ll roar for that!
Would love to try the dandelions tea
GOOD, DANDELION W/SPINACH ETC, DON’T YOU LOVE HER?
Great recipes, Laura! So glad to hear of dandelion fans out there : )
– Eva
Wonderful Spring message for inner cleansing you are sending out!
I would love to have dandelion tea.
Hi! Laura! My favorite greens are beet tops. Yum! Also have grown to love turnip greens and kohlrabi greens. Our CSA box is exploding with those tall stalks.
Say, do you know of a way to do a spring cleanse while NURSING? I am like you all, I want to detox in the spring, it’s a deep need. However with baby still at the breast I don’t dare start detoxing because I heard toxins will go in the milk. Any way I can still support the liver and elimination without putting a strain on my baby’s health? Thanks!
PS I would love to win some of that tea too!
Hi Anne Emilie,
Thanks for sharing your favorites. Beets, turnips and kohlrabi. Yum.
For detoxifying while breastfeeding, how about focusing on strengthening the organs and process of elimination? Triphala, Psyllium, organic aloe, that sort of thing… Kichari is always good, safe…
If toxins are going to the milk they are going deeper into the body… Our cleanses focus on reversing that order, and getting toxins to the organs of elimination fast.
Love you!
I would love some dandelion tea! Yum. I took the quiz & got a combo of chamomile/nettle/passionflower 🙂 . I am really looking forward to the spring cleanse! I loved the winter detox so much! Can’t wait to get started this weekend to refresh, renew & revitalize. xo, Melissa
Thanks, Melissa! Sounds like you’d make a great cup of tea!
The dandelion is the flower of the child
It blossoms in the Springtime and grows so free and wild.
Like Childhood tho’ it is short lived
and goes to seed so soon
It’s silver seed is airborne
before the month of June.
Upon the wind she travels
to place far and wide, and when she gently touches earth
her loveliness does hide.
When the Spring time comes again
she lifts her lovely head
To find where she’s been planted
Her flower family’s spread!
Kate, How beautiful! Thank you.
Today it actually felt like Spring here in the NorthEast at least for a little while! Ahhh you could smell it – and our daily hiking trails were clear enough to hike! I was so happy to see mud! Lots of it 🙂 Still snow on the ground but soon it will be gone…Spring is a coming and so is our cleanse which i am jumping up and down for! I love the seasons and this year Spring is especially welcome – can’t wait for our bitter greens and that great feeling of lightness in my being. Oh and Laura Plumb I love and adore you! Namaste dear one. xo
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Laura – the pictures above are beautiful! I have spinach, collards, beet greens, and arugula in my garden beckoning me…
I am sorry to miss the spring cleanse, we will be in Italy for 8 days of it.
Hi Marcelle, I always think of you this time of year. Hope Spring is beautiful for you, and Italy divine!
Commenting!
Thanks, Emily. You and Becky are the winners, and will be receiving dandelion teas from Traditional Medicinals. Look for an email from them.
I would love some Dandelion tea if there is any left! Belssings
Hello Anita, Recipients were chosen already, but please contact Traditional Medicinals. I imagine they’d be happy to share with someone so committed to offering healing services as you are. Thanks.
Thank You very much for given such a wonder full diet for us. I will try deffinetly
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