crystalfaeries

[a]scension blog

sprouts
1st October 1971
[set of leaves]

Kaua'i sprouting is a delicate art of managing humidity and wetness. On Kaua'i's north and east shores, where humidity is our reality, sprouting is a delicate art to keep the sprouts from drying out, yet not so wet that the sprouts develop mold or mildew. i utilize what i call a process of "drown and drain". This cycle needs to be practiced at least as frequently as every 12 hours, i.e. twice a day. Better yet is thrice daily, every 8 hours. First, i drown the sprouts for half an hour to an hour of time, so that they are submerged in well filtered water, and can't breathe air. Then i completely drain them, of all the water that will drip off of them, and leave them to breathe air until the next drowning. i utilize quart sized "canning jars", to which i apply sprouting "lids", which happen to be plastic screw caps which carry a metal window-screen top. i found these at my local "health food" store.

What sprouts do i grow? i make my own custom mix from 3 different seed sources available at my local health food store:

i rotate 4 jars, so that when i harvest a jar, i then fill it half full of water and place a new tablespoon of seeds into it, to drown in water until the next day, to wake them up. i find that placing the jars at about a negative 45 degree angle in a dish draining rack easily facilitates their draining. Once drained the jars sit horizontally on their sides to breathe and grow, in my case on top of kitchen cabinets, where they aren't in sunshine. With the smaller mixed seed sprouts, I'm harvesting a quart of sprouts each day, at 4 days of age.

In addition, i also grow Mung Beans (2 tablespoons of beans) in a 2 quart jar with the same kind of top. The mung beans are rarely happy after 3 days, so they have their own growing and harvesting cycle every 3 days.

i took a recycled hummus container of my sprout salad to a pot-luck, and everyone wanted the recipe, so, here it is. I'm an intuitive chef, and my recipe du jour depends on what's ripe in my kitchen, so everything in the ingredients list takes 'about that much' of the ingredient, and i usually don't taste the 'dish' until I'm through peparing it. The preparation section gives clues to quantity.

Ingredients

Preparation

Serving

Either pull out a spoon and eat the entire dish as a meal, or serve with chips or crackers as a pupu.


FootNotes

  1. Onion is dis-recommended in ones diet by a number of spiritual traditions.
  2. Garlic is dis-recommended in ones diet by a number of spiritual traditions.
  3. Using a serrated knife like a 'steak knife', insert the knife between the fork's tines, with the fork held with the tines curving away from the handle of the knife and pointing down. Put the fork down to the bottom of the bowl and draw the knife nearly out of the fork while pressing down, thus pulling the food into the fork and slicing it at the same time. Repeat as necessary.

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