Thursday, March 12, 2009

Springtime, lollipops and rainbows...

This post actually only includes springtime, I just included the other things in the title because Greg keeps singing this song over and over. By song I mean, he knows the first four words and repeats. But anyway, spring is here, hooray!

Jonas and I have tired of muffins for now. Well I have at least. I don't know that Jonas will ever tire of muffins, he'd probably eat them non-stop if I let him. So we made granola last week. It's delicious. I lack the motivation to go and find the recipe right now. Laziness. I'll post it later.

My seeds from burpee have finally arrived. The peppers were really the only time sensitive thing I was waiting on. I should have started them weeks ago. The watermelon seeds will wait until I make the grow heap before getting in the ground and the black truffle tomatoes are going to be late and I've come to terms with it.

I read (and lost AHHH!) a book from the library called food from small spaces or something like that. Since reading it I've started growing our own sprouts for things like stir frys and salads. A lady in line at Sprouts, seeing me with a tub of mung beans asked me "how do you cook those beans." I told her that they were for sprouting. She looked quizzical and so I explained further that I sprout them and put them in a stirfry. Still quizzical. "You know, like, chinese food." Still quizzical, I opened my mouth to explain still further when she said abruptly, "I got it." The end. That was weird.

In case anyone is wondering here is how to grow your own sprouts:
place a quarter cup of mung beans in a quart canning jar, fill the jar with water so that the beans are covered and add a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide (the book says bleach but that doesn't jive with me so peroxide it is) soak for fifteen minutes. This is to sterilize the beans so you don't get e coli or something equally unpleasant. Put a clean piece of cloth over the top of the jar and attach with a rubberband, strain, rinse, and fill the jar with water again, leave the beans to soak 8 to 12 hours. strain. Rinse the beans everyday, twice a day if neccessary to keep them from drying out. Keep the jar in a dark place with absolutely no sunlight. in 3-5 days you should have sprouts. There will be a lot of little green hulls in the sprouts, remove them if you want or leave them in. Leaving them in can increase chances of bacterial contamination so if you're eating the sprouts raw it's probably best to remove them. If you're cooking them it's not that big of a deal. Cook them no longer than three minutes to retain nutrients.

Enjoy People! :)

1 comment:

NIKOL said...

That makes me think of the episode of the Office where Creed admitted to spouting Mung Beans on a damp paper towel in his desk drawer. I forget the exact line, but it was something about how he knew it smelled like death. Good times.