Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sprouts

We grow sprouts in my house. My husband started doing it in the beginning of December. I was cautious, I thought he was crazy. I've converted. We stopped buying soggy store bought lettuce, we use sprouts instead. It makes burritos that much more delicious, improves sandwiches, they are crisp unlike store bought. We love them, and they're cheap! I feel like I'm saving so much money, being thrifty and resourceful.
We bought a sprout grower but it didn't work as well as our Mason Jar, with cheese cloth on the top. It is so easy to do.

I bought the sprout mix at a health food store, I don't know where all you get it. For this huge container I spent $15. I want to branch out and get a bean sprout mix to add some more protein to our lives. But this is all we have now. It has a few radishes seeds in them. Which is nice, it gives it a little tang. Plus J and I have fun picking out the purple clover sprouts and eating them. My kid eats sprouts too! He even sometimes asks for them!

So this is how we do it. We pour enough seeds to cover the bottom of the mason jar, let them soak in room temperature over night (12-24 hours). Then drain all the water through the cheese cloth. Then every twelve hours we rinse them, basically at breakfast and while I'm cooking dinner. Just turn on the faucet until all the seeds are covered, then pour the water back out. Then sort of shake the seeds around the jar so they aren't all in a big lump. Although they usually stay in a lump even after the shaking. They sort of need sun, but our kitchen is pretty dark and they do fine. Just keep rinsing for a few days, and then put them in the fridge when the are done. If you don't rinse they get fuzzy, but we found out, if you just miss one or two rinsing then just rinse them and the fuzz washes off. Gross sounding I know. But I'm sure even with rinsing the fuzz the home grown sprouts are 10 times healthier than any store bought vegetable. Not to mention I don't have to worry about the salmonella and e coli stuff that keeps happening. We love our sprouts. Plus it makes Brent happy, because now I'm looking forward to growing vegetables in a garden. I never have wanted to before. But I think wow, if it will taste this good.
(Yes, my mom did grow her own vegetables, but she never really could convince me to eat them. I only started because of my love for my husband. Plus I didn't want to look too picky in front of my inlaws. The first time I met them I eat more asparagus than I had previously in my entire life. I still don't eat tomatoes, I don't like them, and Brent's uncle always catches me giving them to my husband. I also started eating vegetables because of my son. He won't eat them unless both my husband and I eat them.)

3 comments:

  1. thanks I was going to call you and ask you how to make them, they were so yummy at christmas time

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  2. We love to sprout too...only I get a little crazy and sprout too much and make weird things out of the sprouts...like pinto bean sprouts and then I made a funny spring roll with them and refried beans with the other part. I need to get some really good sprouts like yours!
    Have you ever seen these? http://www.healthytraders.com/kitchen-crop-sprouter-tray-p-3097.html This is what we use but the old mason jar works great too! This way you can do sprouts starting at different times or even different types of sprouts. If you want to borrow mine we aren't using it at the moment...I got it from Danna after I lost mine in the fire a while back.

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  3. We have one of those, it takes too long to grow them in there. We like the mason jar better, it takes half as long.

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