Sprout yourself silly
If you’ve got my neverending lettuce’s on the go on your windowsills, well done green-fingered chum, you’re going to love this too!
Here’s another delicious filler to accompany them in salads, sandwiches and in thousands of other dishes; sprouting seeds and beans.
You’ll probably remember cultivating mustard cress at school; I do believe, along with trying to blow up your science lab by mixing exotic coloured bottles of liquid, growing cress was in fact compulsory by international law). It was fun, but it involved cotton wool, plastic boxes, water and patience. Sprouting is much easier and the results are more abundant.
Sprouting beans and seeds are one of the most nutritional forms of raw foods you can get and it’ll come as no surprise, I’m going to urge you to buy the organic versions of. They’re packed with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and proteins, which might not sound instantly appealing but your body will love them.
They’re delicious and so cheap to grow, ideal for the frugal cook, so don’t knock them until you’ve tried them. You can sprout just about anything, examples of my favourites include alfalfa, mung beans, chick peas, broccoli, clover, flax, green pea, garlic (yes, garlic!), fennel, raddish, adzuki beans, fenugreek, sunflower, rocket and of course, good old cress but the list goes on and on. You can even get exotic mixes, detox mixes, hot and spicy mixes, peppery mixes and more.
If you hop onto one of the many worldwide suppliers of sprouts and beans, they will try to sell you the whole kit and caboudle, by that I mean a multi-layered set of perforated perspex trays, filter papers and so on. These are lovely and they do work. I sometimes use my dome from A Vogel, but more often than not, I just sling a tablespoon full of my chosen seeds or beans into a jar, any large jar will do and you can often get them for nothing if you ask the nice man in your local sweet/candy shop for an empty container.
Give the seeds a good blast of cold water, then place a square of cotton or muslin over the top of the jar (ideally cut from threadbare pillowcases, handkerchiefs or sheets) and secure tightly with an elastic band. According to whichever type you’re sprouting, you may be advised to leave the water in the jar for a few minutes or a little longer, it’ll say on the packet.
When they’re done, strain the water out through the cotton and put the jar in the back of a dark cupboard. Give them a rinse of water twice a day, just enough to give them a sloosh around in the jar, then drain off immediately and put back in the cupboard. Within three or six days, you’ll have delicious sprouting seeds or beans, without a chemical in sight, to add to your flourishing frugal menus.
Enjoy…I’m off to give the alfalfa a drink…
Rubbishly yours,
TS x
I’ve tried these, they are so easy to grow and worth a try. You can get loads of different types too.
Happy sprouting!
Deb x
Hi Deb – lovely to see you in the box my friend!
They are smashing, I love sprouting beans and seeds – good to find another convert.
TS x
Hi Tracey, thanks for the tips! Definately going to do sprouting beans! We have our first experimental greenhouse in a corner of someone else’s garden and we’re slowly taking over this garden as L seems to be rather green fingered and successful so we’re now planting all over the garden!
Just want to compliment you on your realistic sympathetic brand of eco-activism. You are dead serious about your goal but you don’t resort to the sad chin-stroking or sneering of many green activists that i’ve lately encountered.
You realise that everyone needs to do their bit and without being judgemental you try to show them how to make it workable and how as a collective group we can make it happen. You understand that rather than preaching to the converted and preaching on and on, you need to listen to people’s individual needs and difficulties and guide them or help to find workable solutions. You also understand that none of us are perfect, you don’t pretend to have a green halo and are always seeking new ways to be greener yourself.
You also understand that the anti-eco-system works from top to bottom and back up again. You show that even those struggling on £30 a week for everything can effect change on big buisness as a collective, but you don’t knock people for buying tesco basics to feed their kids – you understand why they do – you know how hard it can be for isolated individuals on low budgets and you gently help to find workable solutions. I think you are doing great! Keep up the good work! Just wish the preachy types would follow your lead as they are getting nowhere fast – if you were cloned this mess would be well on its way to getting better.
can’t be there saturday as had already paid for course in bristol in advance and having timed journey know going to be impossible
but have a great time at apple party!
love Emma x
I’m almost blushing!
Thank you for such a kind and complimentary posting – I really do try and hope I succeed to be all of the above! I too am scratching around for writing gigs (which are so scarce at the moment) and I don’t mind admitting it either! That said, I do give a positive embrace to living with less and our children are growing up with that attitude too, which I think will set them off on the right foot in life.
I meet people from all walks of life, with all sorts of wage packets and never pidgen-hole anyone – we are all the same, in fact, those that have more coffers in the pot are often wrapped up in all manner of problems as a result of it, so who’s the richer, those with or those without?…..
I only know one thing for sure, it’ll be my life’s work trying to urge people across to living in a greener groove and I have to use so many different hooks to ‘get them’, but once they with it, that’s it! It’s like their whole world changes colour and that means I’ve done a good days work….lolol…
Onwards and upwards missus!
TS x x x
absolutely agree with you Tracey – the ones wrapped in riches certainly have issues – i wrote post when more than a bit pissed off as one old school peer preached on and on at me and others while she was herself enjoying what i consider to be quite a wasteful extravagant lifestyle and i just thought hang on – its okay for her to have a few ‘green status symbols” but actually hers are was for all the wrong reasons and the truth is murkier – a magpie for self gratification really – and yet she was preaching on about the masses like we were all anti-green consumerist idiots failing to wake up and smell coffee – and so listening to her sanctimoniousness go on and on made me think – it is easy to stick a rather extravagant green light in your window (especially if you are single and solvent as she is) but not to actually really do it from your soul and where your whole world changes colour as you say in your post (especially when you are not single and solvent) and when she was doing her complacent patronising preachy thing i thought of a more real green lovely lady that i have had the good fortune to meet – you! and i just wanted to know that really truely if you were cloned then it would be more than a tad wierd but so damn good for the planet! as these others don’t realise that empty preaching won’t and isn’t sorting it. real living it out greenly from the soul, understanding and heart change will. have had my fill of people with noses stuck in the air. although i once half-joked to you that maybe one day it would be good if being anti-green would be as socially unacceptable as smoking is getting, and that green status symbols may be one way of getting the warped masses around to the idea – keeping up with the green jones’ – well i definitely withdraw that idea as the green jones’ are just as maddening and untrue as the old conservative ones and goodness knows what’ll solve it all. but thank goodness you are on the case and all the little actions will add up – thinking of which i must read that zero/one bin bag lady’s story again as it seems nigh on impossible – and my latest goal is with this in mind – am determined that much as where we live is a bit stuffy and people don’t appreciate it if you think outside the box or act beyond the ordinary, nonetheless, i will start leaving packaging in shop, as we are legally entitled to do, even if they don’t appreciate it! deep breath and willpower! hope saturday went well, emma x
Dearest Chum Emma,
What a heartfelt post! Thanks for all your kind well wishes and sentiments and I’d love you to come on the show again soon if you’re able – we can wax lyrical all the way through to lunch.
With lots of love,
Trace x x x x