Thursday, May 27, 2010

Easy and Healthy Sprouts! Make them Yourself with little effort!

My family loves alfalfa sprouts.  In fact, the kids prefer them to lettuce on their sandwiches!
Sprouts have been in the news again for causing sickness. 
You can make your own sprouts at home, and you know they are safe, because you are in control!
They are so much cheaper and so simple to do.  I have been sprouting for years.
I have resorted to the basics, of canning jars and lids for my daily sprouting needs. I keep two going at once, about 2-3 days apart so there is always a fresh supply.
I just put a table spoon of sprouts in a wide mouth canning jar with this lid on top.
fill the jar with water

Then soak them for about 6 hours or overnight.

In the am, drain, rinse twice and set the jar on its side or upside down if its very humid.  You can prop it upside down like this. 
On humid days, I rinse them twice a day, but in the winter time, I find I only need to tend to them once a day.  Rinsing twice can't hurt though, so to be safe, staring out, rinse in the am and before bed.

In about 4 days, they are ready to set in the sun for a short time to turn them green.
After that, they are ready to eat!  
Store them in the frige  and use them on salads and sandwiches.

When I started out, I bought this fancy garden, but its plastic so now I limit my use of it to when I am having guests over for a picnic, 4 days ahead of time, I stack all the trays up and sprout a bunch at once.

A few notes....you can get a powder called Citric Acid, used in canning to add to the rinse water to avoid mold.  Mine do not mold but some types, such as broccoli sprouts tend to mold so adding this avoids that.  So far, I have sprouted alfalfa sprouts (most often what I sprout), red clover sprouts, broccoli sprouts and garbanzo sprouts.

I have a PDF sheet (pictured below) that you can access on my yahoo group.  To subscribe, email..
MargaritaStewart-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
I wasn't sure I wanted to start a new group but this is the only way I can finagle to get you documents I want to upload.  I have a files section on that yahoo group that I can upload things I want to share.  

You are welcome to join under no mail if you wish to recieve no mail, or daily digest to get  a whole days worth of emails in one email....or fully featured to get it all.  At this point, I don't generate much if any emails at all.  I have not really been using this group. You can join under fully featured now and change to no mail at any point also. 



    


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