sprouts 2021-12-19 16:52:13 -1000

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:

• Broccoli seeds
• Alfalfa seeds
• Zesty sprouting mix

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

• A bowl, with a flat bottom, either a large breakfast or dinner bowl, or a small mixing bowl
• Coconut oil
• Vinegar and/or Citrus (1 lemon or 1 lime) juice
• Mustard, any kine, prepared or ground dry powder, heaping teaspoon
• Pickle relish, or a baby pickle, chopped, heaping teaspoon
• Slice of Onion, chopped (I would never include this¹, but was probably some in the pickle relish)
• Piece of Garlic, chopped (I would never include this², but was probably some in the pickle relish)
• Hot Pepper, any kine, chopped or powder
• Himalayan Salt
• Avacado, ripe, pieces (sorry, wasn't in the batch i shared at the potluck)
• Tomato slices or cherry tomatos (sorry, wasn't in the batch i shared at the potluck)
• 1 tsp. Reishi Mushroom powder
• Hemp Seed Hearts
• A Quart jar of fresh ripe mixed sprouts.

Preparation

• To the empty bowl, pour in enough oil to cover the bottom.
• Add enough vinegar and/or citrus juice to equal the volume of oil.
• Add a heaping teaspoon of pickle relish, or the chopped pickle, and if you actually eat them, the chopped onion and/or garlic.
• Add the mustard.
• Add the hot pepper.
• Add a sprinkle of Himalayan salt
• Stir with a sturdy fork, thereby preparing our mustard vinagrette dressing.
• If the avacado goddess has blessed you with a ripe avacado, add the pieces to the mustard vinagrette and slice finely³.
• Add tomato slices or cherry tomatos and slice them finely³ also.
• At this point you basically have guacamole.
• Sprinkle Reishi Mushroom Powder over the guacamole.
• Sprinkle Hemp Seed Hearts over the guacamole enough to cover it completely.
• Stir to mix ingredients thoroughly. If the resulting mix is pastey-dry, then add coconut oil to make it creamy again.
• Open your quart jar of mixed sprouts, placing hand over the mouth, and invert to ensure you've drained them thoroughly. Pull the sprouts out of the jar, depending on your bowl size, taking anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 to 1/2 to all the sprouts, and placing them in your bowl on top of the guacamole seed sauce.
• Slice³ the sprouts and stir them into the guacamole seed sauce.
• Repeat with the remaining sprouts portions until the entire quart of sprouts has been sliced³ and mixed into the guacamole seed sauce.

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.