The sprouting mix is ready!

The sprouting mix is ready and I have made it into hummus and sprouting mix sandwiches.  I can confirm it is delicious!!!

The hummus is home-made from a recipe out of  “A Taste of Turkish Cuisine“.  I have made it several times now and really enjoy it.  Chickpeas were included in the sprouting seed mix and I am now wondering if you can grow chickpeas in this country as we certainly eat enough of them!!  Although they are really cheap to buy.

I like growing things at the allotment which are quite expensive to buy in the shops, hence this year I have created a permanent planting bed for asparagus. I’ve planted 10 crowns and hope to have a small harvest next year although really they won’t do much until the third or fourth year.

Sprouting mix!

I have recently bought some “sprouting mix” from a shop called Unicorn in Chorlton Manchester.  It contains the following seeds: chickpeas, brown lentils, green lentils and sunflower seeds.  I have not grown them before and am looking forward to trying them when they are ready.

They have already begun sprouting as you can see from the photographs above.  I’m using a plastic seed sprouter also bought from Unicorn, it has two layers to place the sprouting seeds on as well as a drip tray to collect the water you pour over each day to wash them and a top to help sprinkle the water.

To prepare the seeds I soaked them overnight, rinsed and spread over the two layers of the sprouting tray.  Then I placed the tray in a warm location out of direct sunlight.  I have to rinse them daily and they will take 3 to 4 days to be ready.  So far they have been sprouting one day and you can see the shoots already beginning to show.  They will be lovely in salads or on sandwiches.

Yum yum yum…

Made a delicious lasagne with allotment produce today.  So satisfying to use and eat what I have grown.

Ok, so I did slightly burn the top due to my white sauce being too thin, but apart from that it was delicious.  Home grown elements included courgette and swede, which I roasted in the oven first to given them a sweeter flavour, and one of my all time favourites and staples, home-grown onion!!!  Normally I would also use home-grown garlic as well, but for some reason this year it just did not grow well, in fact, most of the cloves disappeared over winter and the ones that survived were really small.  Not sure why, but will try again next year!  Finally I also included some green and purple beans which were really flavoursome.