I'm still sprouting... and other creations!

Since I first posted about sprouts after reading about them in Nourishing Traditions, I've been continuing to grow them regularly.  Alfalfa has to be my stand-out favourite, it works every time with no issues and its great to have some on hand in the sprouter or in the fridge to use in summer salads and sandwiches.

Alfalfa is my favourite sprout

I did branch out and try fenugreek.  This is a very useful herb and the seeds smell beautiful, so I couldn't wait to taste the sprouts, but my first few efforts ended in tragedy.  All the sprouts clumped together in the middle of the jar and there wasn't much sprouting action, they just ended up rotting, very frustrating! I tried several times following some of the advice here.  I put less seed in the jar, I broke up the seeds/sprouts to make sure they didn't clump together and washed them carefully.  I had absolutely no luck until a friend gave me some different seeds, which did work.  The lesson here is don't give up on sprouting!  Try some different seeds, something will work for you!

fenugreek worked eventually (and tastes sprouty)
when I got some decent seeds, DON'T GIVE UP!

I was also insprired by this post on hummus (and found out that chickpeas are called garbanzo beans in Spanish/the USA), as I'd heard that I could use sprouted chickpeas to make sprouted hummus, but had no idea how to even make normal hummus, so this was a good place to start.  I found another recipe for sprouted hummus, and it turns out that instead of soaking and cooking the chickpeas, I can just start them sprouting instead.  This seemed like a good idea, as cooking the beans uses a lot of energy, time and patience, whereas sprouting is low energy and easy, as well as the extra goodness of sprouts!  As I never stick to a recipe, I mixed up the two recipes and ended up just blending the following ingredients.

Sprouted chickpea hummus

• 1 c sprouted chickpeas
• 1 clove garlic
• a bit of  lemon juice
• splash of extra virgin olive oil
• some chopped parsley
• 2 t tahini 

It would have been nice to get the mix a little smoother, but my mini food processor was struggling as it was!  It had more of a pesto texture, which gave me my next idea.....

ingredients - forgot the garlic for the photo!
(note that lemon juice is in the bottle on the right, I squeezed a
huge bag of them and froze the juice for later)

  

before

After, yum!

I also made Macadamia nut and basil pesto (recipe here), as we had an excess of both basil and nuts (not from our tree, just they've been cheap at the markets lately).  My husband helped me to crack about a cup of nuts and I made the pesto in our mini food processor, with a little of our homemade strong cheddar cheese, it was delicious!

so much basil!

The ingredients

the finished product, yum again!

Do you sprout?  Any good recipe suggestions?