Growing Sprouts

Sprouts are incredibly nutritious, delicious and very cheap to grow. They are also perfect for growing in small places, like my little desert caravan.

There are many different kinds of sprouts you can grow and special sprouting kits, bottles, trays and seeds that can be purchased. I don't have access to that kind of thing though, so wanted do grow sprouts with things you can get from a regular supermarket.

Supermarket things you can sprout:

- Dried Lentils I discovered only the green and french black ones work. Red ones are split so won't germinate.

- Quinoa

- Broccoli Seeds. From the gardening section of the supermarket. Not that cheap though.

- Mustard Seeds. From the spice section

- Dried Beans

- Pearl Barley. From the soup mix section. Where you also find dried beans and lentils.

- Cress. Also from the gardening section

I tried several kinds of lentils, quinoa, broccoli, mustard and cress with 3 different methods of sprouting.

Method 1: Jar Method

This is the best method for quinoa and lentils. I tried this method with mustard but found it too gluggy to drain, and method 3 was far better for them.

1. Put seeds/grains in a jar of water for 12 hours out direct sun. Attach a cheesecloth cover or a piece of dishcloth to the top of the jar lid with a rubberband.

2. Drain water from the jars using the cover to catch the spouts inside. From now on sprouts won't be sitting in water you merely rince them 2-3 times a day.

3. Once the seeds have a sprout about 1.5 the len

gth of the original seed put on a window sill so that some green can develop (this is optional).

4. Eat sprouts once they are about twice the length of the seed. Quinoa and lentil sprouts can be eaten fresh in salads or even stir-fryed.

Method 2: Wet Paper Towel on a Plate

This method works for seeds that grow vertically such as cress. It would probably also work for mustard or alfalfa.

1. On a large dinner plate or tray lay 2 layers of paper towel. Wet surface with either a splay bottle or by flicking drops of water with your finger.

2. Put a layer of seeds on the paper towel.

3. Moisten towel 2-3 times a day. Keep in a location with a little diffuse light. This will ensure the sprouts become green.

4. Harvest sprouts when they are a few cm tall.

Method 3: Soil in a Chinese Food Container

While this method takes slightly longer to set up in the beginning, it requires the least amount of maintenance as your sprouts will only need to be watered once a day. This works great for broccoli, mustard or cress.

1. Poke a few holes in the bottom of rectangular chinese food contains. This is important for allowing water drainage. Fill with potting mix. Sprinkle a thick layer of seeds and cover with a thin layer of potting mix (seeds should only be a few mm deep in soil). Water.

2. Water daily.

3. Sprouts can be harvested at anytime. Whist nutritionally sprouts such as broccoli are greater when they are smaller, i found broccoli 'seedlings' up to about 5cm were delicious. A great alternative or additive to lettuce in a salad!

Sweet Potato Leaf Salad

I recently got my own hanging veggie garden. One of the plants that I got was a sweet potato. It is probably in too small of a pot to actually get the sweet potatoes to grow large enough to eat, but I do get lovely green leaves that work as a wonderful salad leaf similar to spinach.

While many edible vegetables have edible leaves such as pumpkin, sweet potato leaves have the benefit of not having the small hairs that would make eating them raw quite painful. So it is possible to have them in a salad fresh. They are quite good cooked though as well.

Ingredients

A handful of fresh herbs (I used parsley, coriander and basil as these are what I grow)

~ 2 cups of sweet potato leaves (Young ones are best)

1/2 cup chickpeas from a can

2 tomatos diced

red onion to taste

low fat fetta cheese crumbled

salad dressing (whatever your favourite is. I like a splash of Maggie Beer's Seville vin cotto as it is quite sweet)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Comine all ingredients, dress with your salad dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste

Serve

Mexican Jicama Salad

Jicama is a root vegetable sometimes called a bean yam. It originates from South and Central America where it is an important part of the Festival of the Dead in Mexico.

The leaves of the plant are actually poisonous. This vegetable can be eaten raw, baked, fried.... The only requirement is that it is peeled which given it's unusual shape is surprisingly quite easy. All you need to is cut a bit with a knife and peel the back the skin with your hands. Raw, the vegetable smells and tastes a lot like sugar snap peas with a texture like raw potato.

This is quite close to the way that jicama is served on the streets of Mexico (they serve jicama slices with lime and chilli). It's incredibly fresh and zesty... and would make an awesome side dish with pan-fried salmon. I honestly could eat this stuff for days...and unlike the chips, it's actually healthy and super quick to make.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 a Jicama
1 nectarine
bunch of fresh coriander
one chili (medium heat)
lime juice (fresh or from a bottle)
olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Peel jicama. Slice into thin sticks. Put in bowl with a splash of lime juice (to retain white colour).

2. Slice nectarine and add to bowl. Add a handful of coriander mix.

3. Finely chop chili add to bowl.4. Mix a slash of olive oil with a splash of lime juice. Mix and pour over salad. Serve

Note: Nectarines could be exchanged for mango

Banana Blossom Salad

Upon discovering the rather good fruit and veggie store in Civic I decided that i'd learn to cook one different item of unusual produce each week. This week was banana blossom which is a rather beautiful pinkish flower pod...apparently it is what later becomes a bunch of bananas, and is usually used in Vietnamese, Thai and Hmong cooking. It's also sometimes called a banana bell (there is a pictures below of what it looks like)This recipe is inspired by some others i've seen on the internet, but is ultimately my own creation using whatever other ingredients i had available. And it actually was quite yummy.

INGREDIENTS:

1 banana blossom2 fresh bananas

1/2 a can of coconut cream

soy sauce

sweet chili sauce

baby spinach leaves

rice noodles (the thin kind you use in vietnamese spring rolls. Have them already cooked)

1 fresh chili

1 carrot

chicken...breast cut up would be best, but i used thigh because it was cheaper

1 and 1/2 lemons

a large handful of mint leaves

salt & pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Remove outer petals of the banana bloom and put aside for later. Chop the rest into finely into threads. I removed all the stalky seed things when i did this, although i imagine they would also be edible. Take in the wonderful fragrance of the blossom! Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon onto the chopped blossom. This will help it retain some of the beautiful pink colour and add flavour.

2. Chop mint, chili (remove the seeds), and carrot and add to the blossom in a large bowl. Also add the noodles which should be cooked but cold and fresh baby spinach leaves.

3. Slice the banana and leave in a separate bowl in lemon juice from the remaining 1/2 lemon.

4. In a saucepan lighly spray with oil and add chicken pieces. Cook for a bit, then add coconut cream, soy sauce and sweet chili. Cook until you think the chicken is done and add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Pour chicken and the coconuty sauce over the salad. Add the fresh banana slices. Serve in one of the outer petals of the blossom and garnish with a sprig of mint. It is nice while the chicken is still warm and also the next day when it is cold.