Adventures in Home Sprouting

My husband’s convinced that my recent interest in home sprouting stems from my need to be growing something. He thinks I’m going through summer-garden-withdrawal, which may or may not be true. Whatever the reason, I’m pretty excited to have a go at it.

I’ve always enjoyed sprouts but have never considered growing my own until just recently. The first sprouts I ever had were mung bean sprouts, typical in a number of Chinese dishes. Then, as a teen, I discovered alfalfa sprouts and truly fell in love.  In my thirties, I heard about broccoli sprouts and their concentrated nutritional power and I ate them like they were going out of style.

Fast forward to present time and sprouts are becoming harder and harder to find. Due to the risk of e-Coli and salmonella occurring in sprouts, there are a number of stores and restaurants that have stopped offering them. Commercially grown sprouts are subjected to a number of possible contaminants, typically contaminated water or unclean practices.

After much research, I’ve decided to grown my own and recently received my first order of seeds, nuts, grains, and sprouting tray from SproutPeople.Org.

Here is the mix of seeds that I ordered:

I finally found the time on Friday to get some started and decided to try the Broccoli Sprouts and Madison Market Mix first.

Following the directions on the website, I soaked 2/3 cup of the Madison Market Mix for 4 hours and 3 Tablespoons of the Broccoli Sprouts for 6 hours.

After soaking, the seeds need to be rinsed well and then drained very, very well.

I’ve only had one glitch so far, which is my own fault for not considering it. This is the only sprouting tray that I bought, which is the 8 x 10 Sprout Master Tray:

If you look closely, you can see that some of the Broccoli Seeds have transferred over to the Madison Market Mix side. That little slide-in divider is not very tight and, while shaking the tray to remove excess water, some of the Broccoli Sprouts migrated. Well, now I know better. And did I have to buy the tray? No, not really, but I wanted to start this experiment off on the right sprout, so to speak.

Both of the seeds shown in my last photo have been soaked once, then rinsed and drained twice. I have to tell you, the Madison Market Mix is delicious! This mix is really considered a “Soak” and not a “Sprout.” Soaking seeds and nuts have a myriad of health advantages and benefits. The site Food Matters has a good explanation, so I won’t go into all of it here.

I will tell you the Madison Market Mix is almost gone already. Soaks don’t take as long as Sprouts, which I’m currently pretty happy about. This mix is chewy and flavorful and maybe when I make the next batch, I’ll have enough left over to toss into a salad or mix in with some steamed veggies.

I will be sure to try and follow up with some more photos of my Broccoli Sprouts as they develop. crossing fingers