Category Archives: 52-Week Salad Challenge

And I Just Keep Sprouting

Self-Rejuvenating Spring Onions and Sprouting Lentils.

Sprouting, sprouting and still sprouting almost everything in sight. Haven’t done another batch of mung beans though. Not sure that I will. I’ve gone off them a bit.

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The lentils took about a week to sprout, but when they did, they grew like crazy. Up, up and up some more. I added them to the usual green salad. Crunchy, slightly odd taste, and to be honest not worth repeating or the time and attention needed to sprout them.

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The spring onions are an interesting experiment though. Cut them to the quick two weeks ago, stuck them into a glass of water that changed every morning with fresh water. The green shoots just keep coming. I keep cutting, they keep coming. I may never need to buy spring onions again!!

For info on the 52-Week Salad Challenge click the image below.

52 week salad challenge larger text

Dan Lepard’s Double Chocolate and Lemon Sherbet Meringues

Short and Sweet Baking Challenge: Double Chocolate and Lemon Sherbet Meringues

These look a bit rough and ready; I’ve never perfected the skill of dropping gloopy ingredients from a spoon and forming a teardrop shape. I’m in awe of the photo in “Short and Sweet” – those perfectly formed little oval baubles.

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Appearances aside, mine taste perfectly heavenly, and have a small nub of chewiness at the centre, just as I’d hoped. I plan to make these again but shape them as a Pavlova base.

I also made a batch of the Lemon Sherbet meringues for my husband using Half Spoon sweetener. He thought they were successful. I wasn’t convinced because the sweetener bled after baking, and there was a slight gritty texture that I found unpleasant. He was pleased though, and that’s all that matters to me. I forgot to take photos of the lemon version while I was beating the ingredients together, so here’s a photo of the empty bowl.

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And here are the finished meringues. I had a bit of trouble keeping my insatiable taste for a bit of chocolate under control. I finally put them into a ziplock bag and froze them so I couldn’t eat them all willy-nilly.

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Great recipe, both of them. Look forward to trying it again this summer with strawberries and cream on a chocolate meringue base.

Amazon UK still has Dan’s Short and Sweet book in stock, so get your copy and join the #shortandtweet Baking Challenge on Twitter.

Sprouts and Black Stockings

More Sprouts, Weird Sprouts and No Sprouts

Saturday night, I started a second batch of mung bean sprouts. Sunday morning, I drained, rinsed and popped them into a small jar. They were plump and begging to unfurl little sproutie things, which they did 6hrs later. Gazooks, that was fast. I have high expectations for this crop.

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I’m a semi-seasoned sprouter now; this is my second batch, so I gave myself permission to sway from pedantic adherence to instruction (rinse, drain every 8hrs, cover with muslin, etc). I had a different idea. I’d sing “I’m a Little Tea (no) Pea Sprout, Strong and Stout” to encourage rapid growth. When that didn’t work, I came up with another less clever idea. Continue reading →

Mung Bean Sprouts

52-Week Salad Challenge and Mung Bean Sprout’sekeers

I’m having fun sprouting things. If socks could sprout, I’d probably be soaking those, too. Welcome to a new challenge: The 52-Week Salad Challenge.

Four days ago Monica Shaw inspired me to sprout mung beans. I mean look at this photo on her blog that she took this morning! Mung bean sprouts are the ones you find scattered on the top of Chinese food. Heck, I didn’t know those were mung beans! Did you? Yes, you probably did. As usual, I’m the last one to jump on the tram.

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So, I bought a store-brand bag of dried mung beans, poured a small amount into a bowl, generously covered them with tepid water, and while I waited for them to sprout …. I decided I should read up on how it’s done properly.

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For one of the clearest and easy to follow instructions I’ve read: How To Sprout Mung Beans.  Others I’ve read just confused the mung out of me, and made me anxious about potential E.Coli infection caused by human slurry on fields in China where most mung beans are grown for export. Another blog emphatically stated that sprouts should ONLY be grown from dried mung beans meant for sprouting. A few of my online sprout’sekeers, which is like a musketeer who sprouts things, allayed my fears. They’d bought the same sort of supermarket mung beans and none of them keeled over and died. I was encouraged.

Day Two Mung Bean Sprouts

Day 2: My mungs had real sprouts measuring a few millimetres in length. Twice a day, morning and night, I rinsed them in tepid water and returned them to their jar or plastic tub where they did their thing under the cover of an open-weave muslin cloth.

mung been sprouts day 4

Day 4: I was delighted to see something that appeared edible. The sprouts are 2-3 centimetres long, and curiosity overwhelmed me. I had to taste some of them.

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I made a snack-size salad of cubed mango, dried diced Bing cherries, home-grown *parsley and *basil, shaven flecks of frozen *jalapeño peppers grown last summer, my *sprouted mung beans, all tossed in a light dressing of 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1 tablespoon fizzy lemonade.  (*all home-grown)

52 week salad challengeThis is my first sprout contribution to the 52 Week Salad Challenge which can be following on Twitter using #saladchat  Do join in and add your blog page link by visiting the 52 Week Salad Challenge blog, link above.