Adventures In Kitchen Gardening

When I was in college, I often took the longer break between classes to drive a couple miles to a nearby mall, where there was a Waldenbooks store (anyone remember that book chain?) right across from a little sandwich deli.  I’d buy a book (not related to my school work) and then go have a sandwich and soda at the deli.

The deli served many things, of course, but the only thing I remember now is the sandwich I ordered every time.  It was (really excellent) egg salad served on whole wheat bread, with sprouts and some sliced black olives.  I’d never had sprouts before and they were honestly a complete revelation.  So crisp and fresh and tasty!

Over the years, I’ve become a little less fond of egg salad than I once was, but I have become enamored of a relatively simple vegetarian sandwich.  Cream cheese on both slices of bread, a little mayo for flavor, a couple slices of cheese (I like a slice each of sharp cheddar and Swiss), very thinly sliced cucumber, and sprouts.  You can add more veggies if you want…very thinly sliced sweet onion and green peppers are very nice, and it’s hard to go wrong with a meaty slice of tomato.  But just the basic sandwich is sublime.

While you can buy sprouts in the produce section of most grocery stores, they are mostly just alfalfa or clover sprouts, which are fine, but boring.  Also, the freshness is not always ideal. But if you grow your own sprouts, you will know exactly how fresh they are.  And you can buy sprout mixes that are very inventive and quite tasty.

Which leads me to SproutPeople. It’s a family business that was started in California in the early 90s.  They initially grew sprouts to sell commercially but then veered off to support the home grower.  They carry a truly astounding range of seeds, most of which are sourced from organic growers.  And they sell sprouters, naturally.

Today, I’m going to show how their Easy Sprout Sprouter works to grow some of their French Garden Sprout mix.  The sprouter (I have two of them) is inexpensive, plastic, and works astonishingly well.  You just have to rinse the sprouts twice a day until they’re ready to eat.  And the design of the sprouter makes that super easy.  The company has posted this video on this process. Once you’re done using the sprouter, it’s quite easy to clean.  It’s not clear to me whether it was supposed to be dishwasher safe, but I’ve assumed it was and run it through my dishwasher multiple times. 

For this blog post, I sprouted some French Garden mix seeds that I’ve had for a couple years now.  It’s amazing…just 2 Tbsp of seeds yields you a whole quart of sprouts. You can see the journey in the pictures below.

The French Garden Sprout mix contains clover, arugula, cress, radish, fenugreek, and dill.  It’s absolutely delicious, and 9 times out of 10, it’s what I choose to sprout.  A little side note about the health benefit of sprouts: they are some of the most nutritionally dense foods you could possibly consume.   The sprouts are often more nutritious than the grown plant.  The germination process releases enzymes which aid in digestion.  And in addition to being more highly nutritious than their adult counterparts, often the flavor is better.  For example, I hate broccoli.  Cannot eat it, nor anything that has at any point had broccoli in it. (Stop telling me to “just pick it out,” Mom!)  But…broccoli sprouts?  Perfectly palatable, in addition to having a much higher percentage of the nutrients that make broccoli so good for you.

I cannot recommend this company (or sprout-growing) highly enough.  You can grow sprouts year around, and have a constant supply of extremely nutritious fresh produce that you grew yourself right in your own kitchen.  In addition to making sandwiches with the sprouts, I often just smear a little cream cheese on a piece of toast or a bagel, pile up the sprouts on it, and eat it as a delicious and healthy snack.  Yum!

I have tried using sprouts in some of my green smoothies, and I can’t really recommend that.  The sprout flavor no longer comes through in a pleasant way, and the whole smoothie tastes a little bit like dirt.  Good dirt, from your garden beds, but still…dirt.  Much better to just enjoy the sprouts in their natural form.

If you like sprouts at all, give this company a try.  You won’t be sorry.  Also, they have some kits (a sprouter plus some seeds) and some samplers (smaller packets of multiple seed mixes) that would make lovely gifts.  Christmas is coming, you know…