When in doubt, sprout.

Just about any kind of seed will sprout. Great to know, isn't it?

Sprouted seeds are supposed to be very nutritious for you, more so than the plain old un-sprouted seed. So why would you not want to sprout stuff??

What kinds of things can you sprout?

I have taken the liberty of experimenting with lots of things and here's what I have found so far that sprouts:

Alfalfa
Wheat
soybeans
chickpeas (garbanzo beans)


Want Alfalfa sprouts? Here's how to do it:

find a mason jar and ring, wash it. Buy Alfalfa seeds (maybe at your local health food store--or you can have some of mine. I have an entire gallon ziploc bag of them my mother gave to me. They are from 1982--but hey, they're still sprouting!)

Put a couple of teaspoons of seeds in the jar, and cover with water. Like so:



Soak overnight.

Next day: put a 3x3 in. [clean] nylon over the mouth of the jar. Put on the ring over the nylon. Pour the water out of the jar, refill with water, rinse and pour out. Rinse the seeds every day. (note: not necessary to put it in a cool dark place like some people say--I just leave the jar on the cabinet and it reminds me to rinse them). Within 3-4 days, you should have sprouts that look like this:


Oops, that's kind of a scary looking picture. Anyways, you get the idea. Those little brown seeds are ones that didn't sprout (remember--1982), but when they're done growing, you just pull the whole mess out of the jar into a colander and rinse the dead seeds away.

Alfalfa sprouts are great on:
salads
sandwiches
burritos, etc.


On sprouting wheat I soaked the wheat overnight, then rinsed them, then just left them in a bowl. I did nothing else to them. By the 2nd or 3rd day, the grains were definitely sprouting. However, they stayed soft. I was afraid that trying to grind it up in my grinder, it might gum it up, so when I made bread I just threw the sprouted wheat in whole (in addition to all the wheat flour the recipe calls for). Cooking in the oven did harden up the unground wheat a little bit. I am still experimenting in this dept. (If you have experience /knowledge /crazy idea on said subject, leave me a comment)


What do you do with chickpeas, you might ask?

Well, after you sprout them (same as alfalfa), boil them for 15-20 minutes and then throw them on your salad or make hummus out of it (more on hummus later)

Well, got to go.... Enjoy your sprouts!

Homemade Pasta

My mom gave me a pasta maker for my birthday, so I tried it out (sorry, this pic makes it look like a pile of worms).



You may not have a pasta maker, but you don't need one. You can still make pasta, iron it out with the rolling pin and then cut it with a knife. After it dries for about an hour, fresh pasta only takes about 5 minutes to cook. It stores (in a cool, dry place) up to 2 weeks. Haven't tried this, but it's just a thought: You might be able to freeze it too. So you can make one giant batch and have it last for a while.

Recipe: (courtesy of Deluxe Pasta Maker)
serves 6
about 1 pound of flour (approx. 4 cups), 5 eggs. (if you don't have eggs, according to the recipe, water will work as well. I didn't try this, however.)

Put flour in bowl, crack eggs in middle of the flour, blend eggs into flour. Knead with your hands. If the dough is sticky, add more flour. If it's too dry, add a little water. Roll out on floured board and cut into desired shape. Then lay it out to dry.


Lay yours a little neater than I did mine. Jake was helping me with this while I taught lessons and he got the noodles all stuck to each other, so we had to de-tangle them.

You can make lasagne noodles, fettucini, and spaghetti. You could try those little bow-ties, but I'm not too sure how that would work. (if you know, tell me all about it: basketcasegurl at gmail dot com)

Reasons why making your own pasta is a good idea:
1. It's fresh
2. flour and 5 eggs/water is much cheaper than a package of pasta
3. you can add whole wheat to the flour which makes it healthier
4. chicken noodle soup is just not the same with plain old store noodles
5. If you had to store a year supply of pasta, where would you put it and how much would it
cost? Conversely, if you have bags of flour and wheat--which you probably do--that's all
you need. So it saves space.