I know, I know. This may be of no interest to many of you. But for the one person who may be interested, I wanted to show just how un-sophisticated it is to grow your own sprouts.
I keep sprouts at all three stages, at all times. When the finished batch is first refrigerated, I start a new jar of lentils soaking. The middle batch would be about halfway sprouted at this point, and those new ones would be lentils soaking in water overnight. Within 3 or 4 days, the finished batch would be nearly consumed, the middle batch would be a day away from finishing, and the newest batch would be about 3 days in (4 or 5 days from finishing). I will keep this up until our kale comes back in March for a last harvest before going to seed.
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| right to left for the sprouts progression -- 1) newly sprouted, 2) almost done, 3) fully done and in process of consuming |
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| I use repurposed food jars and pyrex baking dishes |
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| the jars are from salsa, queso, natural peanut butter, and instant coffee -- these sprouts are 1 day away from being completely sprouted |
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| these sprouts were completed about 4 days ago, keeping fresh in the refrigerator in a glass bowl lined with a paper towel, then covered with a lid |
As for how we use the sprouts, I add them to soups, stir fry, shredded cabbage when making cole slaw, and as is, for an impromptu salad. For a quick lunch on Sunday, I heated 2 cans of chicken and noodle soup (bought from the clearance table due to can dents) and tossed in handfuls of the sprouts as the soup finished heating. Delicious and easy. When I make a stir fry, I substitute sprouts where I might add chopped cabbage. In fall as we were finishing off the garden lettuce, I stretched what little lettuce we had with lots of sprouts when making salads. And now, when I make cole slaw, I mix in several large handfuls of sprouts with the shredded cabbage for taste and texture variety.
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| my lunch the other day -- reheated baked beans, toasted, homemade whole wheat bread, and a salad of sprouts with ranch-style dressing |
But the way, I most often eat these sprouts as a simple salad plainly dressed with oil and vinegar or ranch-style dressing. I use the sprouts in my lunch nearly every day. A handful of sprouts cost me about 2 cents in lentils and another penny in water for the soaking and rinsing. I can't buy a serving of produce at the market for 3 cents, especially not at this time of year.
In addition, I haven't bought a single piece of equipment for sprouting. I use previously-used food jars and glass baking dishes. I don't even use cheesecloth or a screen on the opening of the jars. Super-duper simple and extremely little effort -- that's my kind of gardening.
