Sprouts

I'm introducing the grand kids to sprouts.  We have them in Chinese food and they've also had them in salads but until this week, they haven't grown them.  It's easy and I let them put their sprouting jars together themselves. 

First we choose the seeds to sprout.  While I like alfalfa, mustard, and radish sprouts, I thought we'd be better off starting out with the sprouts they are most familiar with - mung beans - the "bean sprouts" you find in the store and in your typical Chinese dish. 

Next we went out into the garage and took some of the plastic screen pieces (from when we replaced a window screen, you wouldn't think I'd throw the screen out, would you?).  We took quart size wide mouth canning jars and drew a circle around the rim on a piece of paper.  That was cut out then placed on top of the screen.  The circle of screen was cut next.  I hot-glued the screen onto a wide-mouth jar ring. 

We poured a tablespoon of seeds into each jar.  Then water was added and swished around then poured out.  We put the jar in the cabinet to keep the light off the sprouts.  Bad idea.  It's easy to forget about the jar when it's in the cabinet.  The next day we swished water in them and poured it out.  Not wanting the seeds to dry out once again we left the jar on the counter.  Then we poured water in a couple times a day to keep them moist, and drained the water out right through the screen. 

After another day the seeds started sprouting.  Boy wanted to know if those were little maggots in with the seeds.  Gross.  No, those are the roots starting to grow.  Rinse and drain a couple times per day.  We left the jar on the counter for one more day then put it in the cabinet for another day.  Tomorrow they will go into the refrigerator and for lunch, delicious sprouts. 

That's all there is to making sprouts.  You can eat them, or you can plant them!  Since it's not time to plant beans we are going to eat them!  Yum.