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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Sprouts and 'Taters

I did another batch of sprouts, as noted in Sprouts and Wishful Thinking.  Actually two batches:  One of lentils and one of mung beans.

You might remember that I did a batch of wheat sprouts and was less than impressed.  My expectations were for something like the bean sprouts you get at the store.  They were way too sweet for my tastes.  I've had a number of comments and a couple of emails telling me to sprout the wheat, dry it and use it in wheat bread.  I understand that this will make the bread much more healthy, but honestly, it's just too much work!

The mung bean and lentils were much more to my liking.

After soaking for a couple of hours, I drained them and put them in a warm, dark cabinet.  They started sprouting by the next day.  Here are the mung beans -


You rinse and drain them twice a day, and they really go to town.  After two more days, they really had taken off -



By the end of day 4, they were big, fat juicy sprouts.  I've been using them in lieu of lettuce on sandwiches.

The first batch of mung beans sprouts lasted exactly 1 day.  I had a couple of sandwiches and put the rest on a seafood salad.  Very, very good stuff.  So good, I forgot to take pictures of them fully sprouted..... my bad!

BUT, I took this picture yesterday.  These are the lentil sprouts on a Spam sandwich (yes, I actually like the stuff!) -



The lentil sprouts taste a little different than the mung bean sprouts.  When eaten alone, they've got a slightly astringent aftertaste.  Not bad, just different from the mung beans.  They still have the "sprout taste" ("taste the green color" as commenter Shy Wolf put it) I was looking for, so they'll be a regular part of my sprout harvesting.

They also lasted a very long time.  These sprouts went into the fridge a week and a half ago, and were still crisp and very tasty.
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I stopped by the home of my buddy's home who I had helped with his potato crop.  I was a bit worried, as right after everything went in, we got hit with a week straight of very heavy rains and rough weather.  Hail storms, tornadoes (yeah, here in Northern Cal) and no sun.

I figured everything would be washed away.

Au contraire, mon frere -


Yep, we've had a good past week of sun, and nature it taking hold.  Not everything, but most of his stuff is starting to sprout.

I only cared about one crop - da spuds.  They just started breaking ground on Sunday.  All of the white potatoes have started coming up, but only a couple of the reds.

Here's one of the spunky white spuds -


Sure, mock me now.  But when I'm hip-high in 'taters, who'll be mocking then, huh?  ;-)

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Copyright 2011 Bison Risk Management Associates. All rights reserved. Please note that in addition to owning Bison Risk Management, Chief Instructor is also a partner in a precious metals business. You are encouraged to repost this information so long as it is credited to Bison Risk Management Associates. www.BisonRMA.com

7 comments:

Joseph said...

But when I'm hip-high in 'taters, who'll be mocking then, huh?
I will but just because I like a challenge and also because your blog is titled Accept the Challenge.

Shy Wolf said...

LOL, Joseph...
I do like the taste of green, even if it was what food eats.
I should do some taters, but going to stick with rhutabegas just cuz I like the taste better than spuds. Besides, I have a couple tons of dehydrated Idahoes puts away. :\
Shy III

Chief Instructor said...

Joseph, indeed! I'm going to try and get my buddy to spring for some 2x4's and wire fabric to make some drying racks. He had a LOT of spuds and onions go bad last year because of poor air circulation. Waste not...

Sly, I'm not a huge fan of rhutabegas, but my buddy has planted a bunch for himself. I do like turnips, but only raw. Nice and spicy...

Terrie said...

Chief,
Good on the mung beans..I love em..I use them on tuna sandwichesand also for stir-fry and egg fu yung...very tasty! Love spam too..(Navy and Hawaii)try cutting the spam into chunks about an inch apeice..fry a little to brown..put some water w/soy sauce to cover the spam then throw in some cut up tomatoes and some chopped cabbage..let it simmer down for bout 20 min,and serve over rice..one of my favorites.

suek said...

Your off topic link for the day. (well, off topic for today's article, but not for your site) Actually a day late...but I just ran across it today.

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-good-anniversary-today-in-1933-fdr.html

There's a link at the end of the article that you will most likely find to be of interest.

Chief Instructor said...

Terrie, sounds very good. I need to give that a try. Question: the soy doesn't make it too salty? I buy the low salt Spam anyways, but just curious. I guess when it goes over the rice, that would cut it quite a bit.

Sue, wow, how did I miss THAT?!

I would say that a good 75% of the new folks that now come into our PM shop ask if they have to give their name when buying PMs. Interestingly, more and more of these folks are from Travis AFB down the road from us. I'm not sure what that means, but we've seen a lot more military guys in our shop.

I had read about Utah. I need to look a bit deeper, but if the Gov didn't veto it, it should be law now.

I'm waiting for the states that have discussed minting their own coins. THAT would really get DCs attention!

suek said...

I wonder how the Utah law will affect...???..the case of the man convicted for minting his own coins.