Making Tom Bradbury’s Dandelion Lemonade

You want to save the world and the oceans start in your back garden.

- Tom Bradbury

Tom Bradbury was a beloved member of the Vocal Community. Before we had comments here, we relied on Facebook groups to interact with each other. His posts gave me faith in social media Vocal at times I lost faith in both. I’ve been wanting to make this for a long time. I like Dandelion and Burdock, and the actual dandelion flowers are ones I have always thought were pretty. After watching the memorial service online, now seems to be a better than then never. Even though I never met him, I feel like I knew him through his stories on Vocal. The fact his Vocal page is mentioned at his service just shows much much this website meant to him. I think if he was alive, he would have loved a lot of the new features here.

Getting the stuff

I don’t have much of a garden. I didn’t have enough dandelions to make the full lemonade, so I’ve decided to do the next best thing and buy one from an indie store on Etsy.

Or so I thought. I had to go out to town to buy some yeast flakes and oat milk. I thought why not get the lemons and sweetners too. I thought whilst walking to town I could see if I could pick up some dandelions for the lemonade. I managed to pick up everything I needed, but jowly as much dandelion heads as needed in the recipe.

I took the bus home as the milks were heavy. Whilst picking the dandelion heads I also grabbed a few blossoming blackberries from the park.

Not a lot of dandelions at first, but then I walked up the hill and I saw lots of the pretty alien flowers growing on a public foot path and soon my bag had a lot of them.

Managed to get more than I thought. With all the stuff I got started with making the lemonade.

Very lemony. The sweetener I picked is coconut nectar. I picked it up at the Nothing but Footprints shop. Lovely name for a lovely little shop. Sadly they didn’t have any dried dandelions and nor did the other health stores. But nothing beats the fresh thing, right?

Boiling the lemons is giving off a nice smell. Excuse the state of the hob, it’s had many spills and burns over the years. Earlier on I used it to make tofu fried rice.

It makes a change to come into the kitchen to the smell of real lemons. I can smell them on my hands too. Cause I don’t have a lot of dandelions I just cut a few lemons to boil. I emptied the whole jar of the coconut nectar into my blender and I will juice the lemon pulp when it’s ready.

After eating out last week, it’s fun to finally be back in the kitchen and cooking things for myself. The food at vegan camp out was amazing, and it’s worth its own Vocal story.

Not quite the colour I was expecting but it smells lovely and when I had a taste it was passable for me.

In the fridge it goes. I will see how it tastes later. At the minute it looks more like watery lemon curd. When it cools down, I will give it a sip. My verdict is that the drink is a little bit better and a little bit sour and sweet. I think the dandelions and lemons really work well together. The coconut nectar really brings everything together. Had to dilute it with water so the lemon dosen’t overwhelm me. I think I went on a different direction after boiling the lemons.

Here’s a toast to Tom. Thanks for inspiration!