Also; when I lived in London and worked an allotment there, a local Italian man showed me how the Italian way was to cover the dandelion plant with a (ceramic) flowerpot - whilst it was growing - to blanch it, which works for those of us who are sensitive to the bitter vitamins and goodies inside the leaves <3 Hope that helps! :-D The Italiano would then put his hand under the whole bloom of leaves, and trim the whole part of the plant outside of the soil (before it had gone to flower), by cutting just into the root - the root was left, to grow leaves again. Beautiful harvesting, from old rural traditions. I imagine you could blanch for different periods, according to taste - even making it very pale, for raw salads, in order to habituate to it - then blanch it for less and less time, eventually getting used to (and enjoying!) the deep-green leaves!