Sprouts for Life!

Ok, I'm officially a sprout addict. LOL Today was day 6 of growing the French Garden Mix from www.sproutpeople.org. Wow, they are really beautiful! (On the left side of the picture) In my opinion, the directions were spot on and they needed the full six days to fully develop. Then I took them outside and let them green up for about an hour. Besides munching on them the whole time I was de-hulling them, I also put some on a chickpea sandwich. OMG, I've discovered a new heaven!

I also grew a new batch of lentil sprouts at the same time and I let them go a full 6 days also. (On the right side of the picture) I should have harvested the lentil sprouts a day or two ago.  They are starting to look brownish in spots.  So, next batch, I'm going to keep a closer eye on them and see.  The first few batches of lentils I only let grow 4 days and they were perfect.  Well, it was an experiment in timing.  I'm going to take this batch and let them air-dry on the counter for a while, drizzle them with a tiny bit of olive oil then sprinkle them with a blend of nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, a tiny bit of salt and some pepper.  Shake them up and since I don't have a dehydrator, I'm going to try placing them in my oven overnight.  No heat except from what comes off the pilot light.  I'm hoping these "chezy snacks" will come out like I'm envisioning.

I started my first batch of chickpea sprouts this morning, too.  Can't wait to eat those buggers.  I love chickpeas more than anything and now that I'm going to be eating them sprouted and raw, they're going to be even better.  I can tell! (grin)

My fermented veggies are moving right along.  I put them in a dark corner of my room last night on some sheets of newspaper.  Good thing I did that!  I left the tops unscrewed and just resting on top of the jars and they indeed started to seep over a bit just like I read about.  I'm not going to touch or mess with them till tomorrow, though. (Man, is that hard to do!) I just hope my hubby doesn't notice the smell and start complaining.  He can't stand kraut. And he keeps referring my jars as "that nasty stuff in the corner." Then, tomorrow, I'll clean up the outside of the jars and maybe pour a tiny bit off the tops of each one to give them some more room.  Sandor at www.wildfermentation.org suggested you taste your veg every day or every other day to see how sour they're getting so that you can decide when is a good time to place them in cold storage.  So, I'll do that tomorrow, too along with the clean-up.

Last thing, I'm posting a new video up on youtube for those of you who are interested in hearing me praise sprouts some more! I'm having a bit of trouble with it, it keeps giving me errors for some reason.  Perhaps it's because of all the Saturday internet traffic.  Anyway, keep your eyes open for it and search youtube for webladyone01 and you'll find my video.  I was going to post a link here, but it's still uploading. Umm wait, not it's not.  Another error.  Oh well, I'll start the upload before I go to bed and hopefully, it'll be ready to view tomorrow.

My next blog post is going to be about my transitioning to 100% raw.  I'm still having some problems with it.  I haven't lost much weight yet, either.  I've only lost 3 pounds. So, I'm going to post what I eat and how I prepare it so that maybe I can get some feedback on what to change.
Peace & Namaste

Almost the New Year

Well, 2010 has come and gone and it's time to start a new year.  Last year I was vegetarian for 10 months then slacked and started eating meat again.  Time to buckle down and get serious once more!  This year not only do I want to get back on track eating vegetarian, but I'd also like to go vegan.  I'm working towards eventually going completely raw for a while, too.  I've heard so many good things about it.

Main problem though is I don't have the proper equipment for a raw lifestyle.  My blender/food processor really sucks bad.  It's noisy and it has very little power.  It doesn't do a good job of making smoothies at all.  And, I don't have a dehydrator at all.  You need a job for those things and of course, I'm not working again.  Trying to at least find something part-time but even that is hard since I don't want to have to work more than 4-6 hours on my feet.

My "kick-start" to all this would optimally be a juice feast, but again, no proper equipment.  I have a Jack Lelane juicer, but all the pulp is such a waste.  If I had the dehydrator, I could use the pulp in that to make crackers or something.  Till then, it would be a wasteful ambition to go on a juice feast.  I just can't justify throwing away all that nutritious pulp product.

I wish someone would read this blog and give me some suggestions.  Thanks.  (oh and using the pulp in baked goods is out, too since our oven is crappy. Every time you turn it on, our room fills with gas and gives me a migraine.)