It has been an extremely mild winter, here in OK, to the point that people still have patches of green grass BUT (as always) I am ready for spring and longer days and outside projects. I don't think I am made to handle the winter I usually feel tired and a little sad by this point in the year, luckily spring is near. As a way to usher in nicer weather (hopefully) and bring something living and fresh into the house I decided to try out a couple of kitchen gardening ideas I had been hearing about. 1: growing green onions from the bulbs of store bought onions. 2: growing my own sprouts in a mason jar.
Kitchen Garden-Attempt #1: GREEN ONIONS. While looking at random things on line I came across this post, explaining that one could take the green onions they had purchased at the store, use the green part, place the bulbs in water and regrow. I thought this seemed too good to be true but I had some onions in the fridge that needed used ASAP so I gave it a whirl. . . look at how great it turned out! In a little over a week I had beautiful green onions just waiting to be stir-fried or put in who knows what.
Kitchen Garden-Attempt #1: GREEN ONIONS. While looking at random things on line I came across this post, explaining that one could take the green onions they had purchased at the store, use the green part, place the bulbs in water and regrow. I thought this seemed too good to be true but I had some onions in the fridge that needed used ASAP so I gave it a whirl. . . look at how great it turned out! In a little over a week I had beautiful green onions just waiting to be stir-fried or put in who knows what.
Freshly trimmed
A little bit of new growth
Even more growth
Beautiful!!!!!
Kitchen Garden-Attempt #2: SPROUTS! A few weeks ago Jerod and I had brunch with some friends who happened to mention they had recieved a sprouter as a gift and were going to start growing their own sprouts. I had never heard of doing this or that you could buy a contraption to help you so I did a little research and discovered that you can also grow sprouts in a mason jar. I figured I would try this method and see if I was even interested in being a sprout farmer (I based my growing method on the instructions provided here and here). It ended up being super easy. All you do is take a 1/4 cup of whatever you are growing (I used lentils), add atleast 2 inches of water over the seed/bean/whatever, cover the top of the jar with cheese cloth secure it, and let the seed/bean/whatever soak in a dark place for 12 hours. The next day you rinse the seed/bean/whatever, get as much water out as you can and place the container back in the dark spot to drain, you will do this step 2 to 3 times a day. Once your sprouts have begun growing and get to around a 1/4 to 1/2" place the container in the window for a day or two to greens things up and get the sprouts a little bigger, remove from the jar and place in an air tight container in the fridge. I have been eating sprout, cucumber and turkey sandwiches nonstop! This little project took about a week from soaking to eating. The time and care might be slightly different for other sprouts. I am dying to try Mung Bean so we will see what happends with those.
Soaking!
Rinsing
Draining. . . in my jar cabinet
Ready for the window.
All greened up and ready to eat.
The best lunch ever!
I hope all of you are making it through the winter or finding ways of coping.
I may have to try the sprouts too! I like them, but they seem a little expensive for what you get, and they always seem to go bad before I can use the whole container.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you try them! I don't know how much a quarter cup of dried lentils costs but it's not much. Although, I think Mung beans will be a little more they will still be cheaper than the store and a smaller quantity. Plus, as a friend pointed out to me it seems sprouts are often recalled so...now you know where they are coming from.
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