Sproutin’ time is here again…

Yup, that time of year when I’m desperate for any growing things.  For the taste of something tiny and fresh.

Here are the seeds yesterday morning; slightly sprouted!  You can just see the tails beginning to form.

This is my own custom-blended mix of alfalfa, broccoli, radish and mustard.  The seeds were bought off the rack at Lowe’s, just because I was SO happy to see seeds there in January. 

Crazy early, but there is something lovely about browsing the “growing things” aisle.

So here are the same seeds this morning.

Nice growth activity on the tails, and the husks of the seeds are starting to come off.  Tomorrow, I plan to give them their final rinse and then run them through my new, never-used “baby” centrifuge to see if I can get more of the husks off than usual.

With rice-wine vinegar, craisins and some other things, these make a fantastic homegrown Shabbos salad.

Here’s my sprouting rig, btw.  Just checked and I bought it just about this time last year!  I remember wandering around The Big Carrot, probably searching for my just-dead father, but the sprouter (EasySprout) actually was kind of a consolation.

I tried sprouting in different things for a while… I was especially drawn to the concept of basket sprouting.  Basically, you take an unfinished cheap woven basket (unshellacked bamboo) and you spread the seeds in there and rinse it every 12 hours or so after the initial soak.

However, the baskets invariably got moldy; no amount of rinsing could prevent the edges from turning fuzzy, and that was not a happy thing to have in my nice fresh healthy salad.

I have also sprouted with great success in plain cotton bags, by the way.  They’re great for mung and wheat.  I’ve done a lot of wheat for bread baking – most people don’t realize that whole-grain wheat kernels (wheat berries) in health-food stores are still alive and just waiting to sprout, given the right conditions.  Once sprouted, you can use them in breads, ground or whole or partially ground depending on the texture you want.

Anyway, so, sprouting.  That’s what I’m up to.

And while I was taking the picture of the sprouter to brag and blog about my healthy lifestyle, I realized there was a tremendous little irony happening in the background…  

Yes, alongside the EasySprout, these are indeed the fixings for a Coke float.  I made one out of my ice cream at Elisheva’s birthday a few weeks ago and now I keep dreaming of them.

So sue me.  I never claimed to be some kind of health expert.  I do try to eat healthy stuff sometimes, if only to balance out all the rest.

Alfalfa and Cola.  Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Let’s just call those two items this week’s Garden High and Low, shall we?