Sprouting!

If you're anything like me, you may be a little daunted by the idea of gardening.  Sprouting is in the gardening category, and I have little experience with gardening.  Try as I might, I kill most plant life.

I've recently started looking into sprouting and it doesn't look all that difficult.  I found this video of a man growing sprouts and wheatgrass in his truck!  Very inspiring stuff.  If he can manage on the road, there is no excuse for me to not try sprouting in my kitchen! Check it out.

Sprouting doesn't take many supplies at all. In fact, seeds and a sprouting device are all you'll need.  You may already have what you need waiting for you in your kitchen!

To begin sprouting, all you need are:

• Seeds
• Mason jars
• Lid rings for the jars
• Screen, cheesecloth, or flour sack towels

What I'm using:

• 2 pint mason jars with metal rings
• flour sack towels
• 1/2 c. adzuki beans (1/4 c. per jar)

If you have organic quinoa, beans, or lentils, they'll probably sprout. I happen to have some adzuki beans  in the pantry at the moment, so that's what I'm experimenting with.  I don't have any of the larger mason jars like in the video, so I'll be using two pint jars.

As far as soaking, I've read mixed information about preferred water/bean ratios.  Some say double the water for how many beans/seeds you have; some say use as much as four times the water as beans/seeds. Some people put very little seeds/beans in their jars; some people seem to fill it almost halfway with seeds/beans!

               

Since I'm not really sure what to expect here, and I'm going to finish sprouting in the jar (instead of soaking in the jar, then dumping in a dedicated sprouting device), I'm going to go light on the beans and heavy on the water.  I think I'm just going to fill the jar with water.

Put your towel or screen on the jar, and screw the ring on.  Sit the jar (now full of 1/4 c. beans and water) on the counter and allow to soak for 8-12 hours.

If you're trying something other than beans or lentils, I recommend doing a little research to figure out your soak time and optimal seed/water ratios.  Not everything sprouts in the same amount of time.  Some things, like grains, apparently, only take about 20 minutes to soak, and 3 days to sprout.

After the soak, dump the water out (just turn the jar upside down over your sink).  Fill back up, rinse and agitate the beans a little by swirling the jar.  Drain well.  Repeat this a few times until the seeds/beans are rinsed well (until the water isn't foggy?).  Sit the jar on the counter again for another 8-12 hours.

Repeat the rinsing and waiting process a few more times, and you should have sprouts!

Here's another video I found demonstrating the soaking and rinsing process, including a time-lapse of the soak!

If you have a favorite thing to sprout, or method of sprouting, I'd love to hear about it!

Corn & Black Bean Salsa (and a raw update)

I'm not sure if I've discussed this previously, but a secondary reason for me to try a raw diet was indigestion. Before I tried going raw, I was experiencing terrible indigestion in the morning. I was throwing up clear puddles of acidic liquid each morning. It got so bad that I thought i was pregnant (morning sickness), and eventually I had blood work done. It turned out I was not pregnant, so the doctor recommended I take an antacid. Long story short, the antacids didn't work, but the raw diet did.

I tell you this because today, approximately 1.5 months back on a non-raw diet (I've been eating non-raw since about thanksgiving), and its happening again. Granted, I did have spaghetti for dinner last night, which isn't helping.  I usually try to avoid tomato based sauces.  Either way, this is motivation for me to get back on track. My finances are pretty much back to normal, so I thought there is no better time than the present to bring raw back into my life.

Last time I started sliding into a raw diet, I started off by drinking green smoothies. But last time, I quickly got overwhelmed by all the fun gadgets and recipes, and started trying to make tons of "gourmet" dishes. This is where I went wrong financially. For me, it was just too expensive and too time consuming to buy so many different fruits and vegetables and prep them for the recipes I had planned for the week. For one, fruits and vegetables are more expensive than other groceries; second, I found I was wasting a lot of produce at the end of the week. This was either because I had more on hand than I needed for my recipe, or simply because I ended up not using it.  Plain and simple, it was poor menu planning on my part.

This time around, I'm taking a more laid back approach. I'm still doing a green smoothie each day, but I'm not going to obsess over making a ton of recipes. I also realized that I like to have a salsa available which includes avocado. If nothing else, I will be sure to make a salsa each week.  I made this really tasty corn & black bean salsa recipe this week.  I was inspired by a picture I saw somewhere.  Probably on Pinterest...  The picture was a huge bowl of corn, tomato, and red peppers with cilantro.  I took that a step farther and added avocado, onion, and beans.  It's heartier and far more satisfying this way.  

Corn & Black Bean Salsa

2 tomatoes, dices

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 cucumber, diced

3 thick slices of red onion, diced

1 avocado, diced

cilantro to taste

couple splashes of vinegar

1 can of corn (use fresh if in season!)

1 can of black beans

1. Toss together all of the diced veggies.
2. Rinse canned ingredients well, and add to veggies. 
3. Add cilantro and a couple splashes of vinegar.  (The recipe I found called for lime juice, but I didn't have lime juice, so I used vinegar.  Feel free to use lime juice if you have it.  It would probably be better.)  I used garlic flavored rice wine vinegar.  It's just what I had on hand. I'm sure any mild vinegar would be fine.  
4. Scoop into bibb lettuce for veggie tacos (pictured above), or eat it with tortilla chips.  

I'm sure this would be really great with garlic and jalapeno, if you care for a more intense flavor.  If this is a little bland for you, you could easily dress it up with a little bit of greek dressing, or even your favorite homemade dressing!    

Other than eating salsa and green smoothies, I'm going to try to include more whole foods in general into my diet. Easy on-the-go stuff like apples, bananas, grapes, and cherries.  At least at first.  

And speaking of smoothies, I just made an awesome smoothie this morning.  Kale, strawberries, bananas, coconut oil, and hemp seeds.  The coconut oil and hemp seeds really leveled it out and kept me full all morning!  If your smoothies haven't been keeping you full, try adding some seeds and/or oil! 

Oh, and I also think I'm going to start juicing. I've been doing a lot of research on the topic lately, and I'm starting to think it may be the only way to be really successful long term with a raw diet. See, I've also realized that there are a lot of vegetables that I don't care for in their raw form. Sure, I could cook them instead, but wheres the fun in that? I'm a  little off put by the potential strong flavor, but many people claim fresh veg juice doesn't taste at all like what you expect it to. I know that's vague, but I kinda see what they probably mean. So I plan to save up for a juicer over the near future. I'm leaning toward a masticating juicer, but well talk more about that another day! 

DIY All Purpose Cleaner Recipe

I bought a book full of eco-friendly recipes a while ago called Clean House, Clean Planet, by Karen Logan.  My main reason for doing so is, obviously, to make more eco-friendly products.  I recently watched a documentary on Netflix (Chemercial: Redifining clean for a new generation) about a family who gave up all chemicals.  They had the air quality within their home tested before they changed products, and had alarmingly high rates of VOC's in the air. After they had converted to homemade eco-products for some time, they had their air quality tested again, and the VOC rate was next to nothing. Watching this documentary got me thinking about all the pollution that I probably have within my own home.  

My second motivation for making my own products is to save money.  Who doesn't want to save money?  Seriously?  For the most part, most of these ecofriendly products can be made with a combination of vinegar, baking soda, borax, and castile soap. My preferred castile soap is Dr. Bronner's.  These are all inexpensive and easily attainable products. I happen to already have all of these things on hand, but I'm pretty sure you can pick them all up for less than $25. If you are willing to spend more initially, you can buy larger quantities and save money in the long run. But, if you just want to dip your toe into making your own products, you can get small quantities of all these products for an affordable price. 

Now, dont get me wrong, it's not like I hadnt thought about going green before seeing this documentary. Of course I have already thought about it, and I even tried replacing my usual cleaning products with their eco-friendly counterparts years ago, but I found them to not be nearly as effective. Also, I found it to be MORE wastefule to use the eco products since I had to use more to get the same results, which then caused more plastic waste and more spending. 

Since I've resolved to make 2013 a healthier year, I figured there is no better time than now to whip out this book and make something!  The first thing I made was all purpose cleaner.  It only took the 3 simple ingredients, plus some hot water!  Quick and easy!  Check it out...

Oh, and don't mind the bowl of baking soda in the picture. I put that in the line-up by accident, and didn't feel like taking a new picture once I realized!  Yes, I can count, and no the recipe below is NOT lacking a measurement for baking soda :)

All Purpose Cleaner

24 oz. spray bottle

1/2 tsp. borax

2 tbsp. white vinegar

Hot water up to ~20 oz. fill line

1/2 c. castile soap (I used Dr. B's peppermint)

10 drops essential oil (optional for fragrance)

1. Combine borax and vinegar in the spray bottle, then fill bottle up to the 20 oz fill line. Shake until borax is dissolved.  Then pour in the castile soap and essential oil and shake gently to combine.  
2. Clean some shit!  Enjoy knowing that your skin won't melt off!

It's really that easy to have a homemade, eco-friendly all purpose cleaner!  It literally took me less than 5 minutes to make this.  The best part is that it actually works!  And I don't have to worry about getting bleach on my clothes if I bump against the counter while I'm cleaning.  Maybe it's just me, but I used to ruin a lot of shirts that way.  Yea, probably just me...

Berries and Kale Smoothie, and a healthy new year

I've been lethargic and foggy-headed lately.  I can only blame the food I've been eating lately.  My body is sad and it misses fruits and veggies.  I haven’t really been sticking to a raw diet lately, and my body is rebelling.  A bunch of things sort of came to a head over the holidays which prevented me from sticking to the raw food, but now that the holidays are over and my finances are getting back on track, I’m looking forward to a getting back to a healthy lifestyle.  The two main things that prevented me from maintaining a raw lifestyle are finances and time.  

Let’s face it, raw food is expensive and it can be time consuming to prepare.  Between everything that life throws our way, it can be really easy to let our health take a back-burner to some of the seemingly more pressing issues we face daily.  Life is full of enough stresses as it is; food shouldn't be one of them.  

I’m not a person who makes resolutions when the new year rolls around, but this year I am determined to find a way to make healthier decisions without breaking the bank or dedicating all of my spare time to cutting fruit.  I am determined to find an affordable way to maintain a whole-foods, plant-based diet.  I plan to explore juicing, among other things.  But for now, I may just have to stick to daily green smoothies.  

Speaking of green smoothies, here’s one that I really like.  

Berries and Kale Smoothie

1/2 c. grapes

6 strawberries

3/4 c. pineapple

1/4 c. citrus

1/4 c. blueberries

2 large kale leaves

Water to desired consistency

Combine in the blender and blend until smooth.  Enjoy!  

New Conditioner!

I got some new conditioners recently, just before Christmas!  I have been so excited to try something new since my disaster with the last two products I decided to try.  I was so excited I took the box up into my bathroom and opened it right there on the sink!

I got Elucence Moisture Balancing Conditioner, Camille Rose Naturals SOYlicious Conditioner, and Bee Mine Avocado Balancing Conditioner.  Curlmart also threw in a few samples!  I love free samples, don't you?!  I get so damn excited when I open packages and see free shit!  The samples were Curly Hair Solutions Curl Keeper, and something by Twisted Sista (but it has silicone in it, so I didn't pay much attention to it).  

The Bee Mine and Camille Rose Naturals are super thick, so I can't co-wash with them.  Luckily, the Elucence is rather thin, and I don't care for the way it made my hair feel overall, so it worked out nicely to step in as a co-wash.  

I've been using the Bee Mine primarily so far, and I really like it. I thought I would like the Camille Rose Naturals better because it's thicker, but the Bee Mine ends up feeling thicker in your hair once wet than it seems in your palm.  A little goes a long way with this stuff, too!  It's a nice balance of everything I look for in a conditioner.  It's thick enough to coat everything nicely and also leave the ends feeling smooth (I have a super huge problem with tangly ends), slippery enough to detangle, and it's got protein!  So far, this is a winner winner chicken dinner.  

I've also been using the Curl Keeper pre-KCCC ever since, which has been about a week now.  I like it a lot so far.  In fact, I've already ordered a bottle from Amazon!  Nothing against Curlmart, but since I'm an Amazon Prime member, many things end up being cheaper and arriving faster from Amazon for me because of the free 2-day shipping.  It claims to be all-natural, but it has a lot of strange ingredients.  Sometimes I wonder exactly what kind of regulations are in place for product labeling...

Right now my routine is:

Co-wash with Elucence

Rinse out with Bee Mine

Pre-gel with Curl Keeper

Gel with Kinky Curly Curling Custard

t-shirt scrunch, clip roots, diffuse dry

Amazing Grass Chocolate Shake

The resident child has been sick for the past few days with a fluctuating fever.  We've been dosing her up with the usual meds (cough syrup, motrin, etc.), but the damn fever just won't quit.  I decided today to try giving her a smoothie with some Amazing Grass GREENsuperfood powder mixed in to help give her body an extra germ-fighting boost.  I didn't think she'd be too keen on the idea of consuming something with the word "grass" in the title, so I kept that ingredient a secret.  I just told her it was a chocolate milkshake.  She was none the wiser, and she loved every bite!

The best part about it is that this is almost raw, and can easily be converted to be entirely so, and is packed with antioxidants and vitamins!  To make this entirely raw, just use raw peanuts (or whatever nuts) instead of peanut butter, and raw nut milk, or even water, instead of  the milk.  The GREENsuperfood powder is labeled as raw, so you're already good to go there!

Amazing Grass Chocolate Shake

1 banana, chopped and frozen (~1 c.)

1/4 c. peanut butter

2 tbsp. cocoa powder

1 scoop Amazing Grass GREENsuperfood powder

milk, to desired consistency

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until creamy.  Serve immediately with a spoon or a fat straw.  
2. Sit back and enjoy kicking some serious germ ass!  Or just enjoy...

This recipe is totally flexible and will stand up well to almost any substitution.  If you want to mask the chlorophyll ("green") flavor, just make sure you don't skimp on the cocoa powder!  Otherwise, you could use 1 cup of almost any frozen fruit, 1/4 cup of any nuts or nut butter, and whatever liquid you like!  I think coconut water (or milk) would be a nice addition.  I might try that next time...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

We baked cookies for Santa tonight!  We used my favorite chocolate chip recipe (adapted from Cook's Illustrated).  They turned out absolutely delish.  Ever since I found this recipe, I haven't used another.  It's my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I did change it up a little this time around though.  I used olive oil instead of butter.  I always like to use oil when possible in recipes, and it turned out to be a really nice substitution here.  

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 c. AP flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. olive oil
1 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 c. semisweet mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the oil, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.

3. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.

4. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time (for giant cookies) or a tablespoon at a time (for smaller cookies) onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

5. Bake larger cookies for 15 to 17 minutes, or 10 to 12 minutes for smaller ones (check your cookies before they’re done; depending on your scoop size, your baking time will vary) in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.