Posted on 10/15/2015 12:33:51 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
I used to work near a little 'hippie' co-op food store, and would frequently buy my lunch there. My favorite lunch was a sandwich of whole grain bread, a shmear of hummus, slice of cheese, tomato slices, mayo - and a big blob of alfalfa sprouts. At the time, I had no idea how nutritious those sprouts were, I just liked the freshness and crunch of them, and alfalfa sprouts remained a favorite addition to sandwiches.
Since then I've learned that sprouts - and microgreens - are among the most nutritious things that we can eat, and that they are very easy to grow in a home kitchen. The seeds store easily and have an amazing shelf-life, which should make them very interesting to the 'preppers' among us - fresh, highly nutritious greens, almost 'on-demand', without the need for a garden! (I recently read that the seeds can actually be frozen, to extend that long shelf life even further, which was a surprise to me; it's something I want to experiment with, and compare germination rates with unfrozen ones.)
One of the places where we purchase seeds has a guide to storing and shelf life of the various seeds:
https://sproutpeople.org/growing-sprouts/sprouting-basics/seed-storage/
About the same time that I was frequenting the hippie store for my lunches, a friend of mine became interested in the 'Fit for Life' diet/health approach, and gave me the Diamonds' first book:
http://www.amazon.com/Fit-Life-Harvey-Diamond/dp/0446553646
While I never became a devotee of the entire plan, there were lots of great recipes in the book, and one of my favorites was this, which they called:
'Award Winning Potato-Lover's Salad'
6 red-skinned new potatoes
2 T. Butter
1/2 tsp. sea salt or seasoned salt
1/4 tsp paprika
2 cups broccoli florets, chopped and steamed until just tender
4 cups head lettuce, chopped
2 cups spinach, chopped
2 cups red cabbage, finedly shredded
1 cup alfalfa sprouts
Dressing:
1 large clove garlic, minced finely or crushed
2 tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1 to 2 T. mayonnaise
Place potatoes whole and unpeeled in a vegetable steamer, covered, over boiling water for 20 minutes or until almost tender.
Remove potatoes from heat and quarter or cut into 1/2 inch cubes (peeling is optional). Place in large bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a small saucepan and pout over potatoes; toss well. Add sea salt and paprika, mix well, and place in one layer on a cookie sheet. Broil for 5 to 10 minutes.
Place lettuce and spinach in a large bowl, add sprouts (separated so they don't clump). Add the shredded cabbage. Cut the broccoli lengthwise into thin slivers and add to greens.
For the dressing, peel the garlic and crush or mince; place garlic in a measuring cup, add lemon or lime juice, salt, olvie oil and herbs. Whisk in mayonnaise, and whip the dressing until thick and creamy. Pout over salad and toss well.
Add the potatoes to the top of the salad and season with salt and pepper if desired. Serves 2. _________________________________________________________
The following video shows how to sprout seeds at home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmKctMME_xc
(My one reservation is that I wouldn't suggest a beginner start with a seed 'mix'. We have not had the best luck with those, because of the different sizes and germination rates of the seeds in many mixes. So far, we grow one type in each jar.)
Lastly, here is a Mung Bean Sprout/Mango salad that I haven't tried yet, but which looks very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWFm80VOc4
This week: Sprouting Seeds for Healthy Greens; with a ping to Kartographer for the prep-value of seed sprouting.
(If you would like to be on or off of this weekly cooking thread ping list, please send a private message.)
-JT
Preppers’ PING!!
Hat tip to Jamestown1630 for the heads up!
IMHO, it can’t hold a candle to the REAL ‘SOS’, creamed chipped beef :-)
Also good. When you’re cold and hungry, Army SOS tasted like a Christmas feast.
All you need is a nice wide mouth quart jar, and a glass bowl with some plastic wrap. And a small screen for when they are in the jar. I use a stainless steel drain screen works great.
For alfalfa I soak for 24 hours, for the 2 of us I use 1/4 cup seeds. Soak in the jar with the jar pretty full of water and use the screen to change out the water at least twice during the 24 hours. Then I leave it sit on the kitchen counter for a few days, rinsing it twice a day. The concave drain screen keeps the tiny sprouts in the jar easily.The sprout roots come out first.
When you see the leaves I transfer to the glass bowl. Shake out everything into the bowl and rinse well, using your hand to gently break up any clumps. By then any seeds that won't germinate can sink to the bottom. I use a wide splatter screen to put handfuls on temporarily while I rinse then dump the seeds that did not germinate. Keep in the glass bowl after that, and cover almost completely with plastic wrap. That's when I put them on the sunny windowsill. Rinse every day, sometimes twice a day. They want to grow together into a clump so gently break them apart in the water to clean them. Set handfuls on the big screen to drain and you can clean out the seed hulls that way. Your sprouts will be really clean that way, and taste great. From the time they good on the glass bowl it is about 3-4 days. The last day I do a final rinse and leave in the sun all day without disturbing them. the tops all have a chance to grow up and get really green.
WHISKEY CAKE
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
5 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup whiskey
3/4 cup VERY COLD butter, cut into pieces
1 (11 ounce) package butterscotch chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, stir together cake mix and pudding mix. Make a well in the center and pour in eggs, milk, whiskey and butter. Beat on low speed until blended. Scrape bowl, and beat 4 minutes on medium speed. Reserve a 1/2 cup of the butterscotch chips for the top of the cake. Stir in the remaining butterscotch chips. Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle with reserved chips and nuts.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.
*I dust mine with powdered sugar.
I make a similar recipe to the SOS, but add sour cream to it and serve it over noodles. It was a favorite of my kids when they were young.
Thanks for the tips. Getting the hulls out and drying is my least favorite bit of the process. They need to make a small, very fine-mesh salad spinner for that.
I’ve recently bought a hemp bag for drying, which I want to try - I once saw someone swing it around outside to dry the sprouts.
Have you ever had any trouble with sprouts growing in your kitchen drain? I’ve heard it can happen, so we’re very careful about not letting seeds go down; but I’m not sure it’s a real problem, if you have a disposal to run.
-JT
That sounds Very Good!
Now that the weather is getting crisper (on the east coast, at least), soups are a favorite. Just made this clam chowder and it was very good.
Clam Chowder
Adapted from a Cooks Illustrated recipe
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, diced
1 large onion, cut into a medium dice, about 2 cups (480 ml.)
2 tablespoons (30 ml.) all-purpose flour
16 oz. (480 ml.) bottled clam juice
3 6½ oz. (184 gr., or 552 gr. total) cans of chopped clams
1 10 oz. (283.5 gr.) can of baby clams
1 cup (240 ml.) water (See note)
1½ pounds (680 gr.) boiling potatoes, scrubbed and cut into medium dice
1 large bay leaf
1 teaspoon (5 ml.) fresh thyme or ¼ teaspoon (1.25 ml.) dried thyme
1 cup (240 ml.) heavy cream
2 tablespoons (30 ml.) fresh parsley, minced
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
Fry the bacon in a Dutch oven over medium-low heat until it is crisp and brown, about 5-7 minutes.
Add the onion and sauté until softened, about 4-5 minutes more.
Add the flour while stirring constantly until it is lightly colored, about a minute or so.
Gradually whisk in the water, the bottled clam juice along with the juice from the canned clams.
Add the potatoes, bay leaf and thyme.
Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes or so.
Add the clams, cream, parsley, salt (if necessary) and pepper to taste.
Bring to a simmer, remove from the heat and serve.
Serves 6.
Note: If you like a thicker chowder, add less water and another T. or so of flour.
Fresh clams and juice would make it awesome, if you can get them. We live inland, so that’s not going to happen.
I loathe alfalfa sprouts or, in my rural youth, cow food not meant for human consumption.
You are very kind. Thank you. :)
Alfalfa sprouts served in the form God and the pioneers intended (recycled as beef!)
I’m going to save it for the Holidays. You can’t go wrong with boozy-butterscotchy in the same cake!
-JT
You remind me of my husband’s English grandmother. She’d never eat oats, and took a long time to like corn: they were ‘animal food’.
There are lots of other kinds of sprouts...
That looks hella good!
I would think it would be good served over mashed potatos?
Soon as I saw the letters SOS, I laughed, as my mom, who was an army wife, told me all about it, and she didn’t like it one little bit. However, it’s all about perspective—when you’re starving, anything remotely edible looks like a million damn dollars.
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