Friday, June 26, 2009

Another One for the You Ain't Lived Dept.

Thin slice of fresh rutabaga.

Spread on natural peanut butter or coconut oil or....

Sprinkle "seed" over the top and dump off excess that does not stick.

Go over and sit in favorite chair and enjoy.

Walk back to counter and repeat.

This is a good one to try on the day you first go off of bread.

Now here is what is meant by "seed:"

Take equal parts of hulled (butt naked but not "pearled") spelt, millet and barley that are not too aged, but maybe go a little light on the barley. Soak in water for 1-2 hours and drain. Rinse and drain thoroughly at least 3 times per day until all 3 naked grains are sprouted substantially; however, do not continue until they start to sour. Curtail sprouting while they are still sweet. This will probably only work for naked grains if the temperature is continuously between 70 degrees F and 110 degrees F, with the temperature reaching at least 80 degrees F for most of the daytime hours. The warmer, the better the sprout. If it sours, you can still try rinsing it very well and proceeding and see if the taste is acceptable to you; otherwise, you will have to start over and not let it go as long. But do not throw away sour or mouldy sprouts: find a place to plant them and then use the grass that results. I planted a 2' x 20' row of mouldy wheat this Spring that kept me in wheat grass juice almost every day for about 2 months. Anyway, once you are done sprouting, set the product out in the sun for just a couple of hours on some sort of clean cloth and spread them evenly, long enough to dry them externally. You can leave them out longer and no harm is done, it's just that the longer they are left out, the more chlorophyll they'll develop (good thing), but the harder they will get. The drier they are, the better they'll keep, but you may want to hydrolyze them a bit just before consumption in that case. If you do not put them out to dry in the sun, they will soon sour before you can eat them all, unless you made an idiotically small amount. You need to make at least 2 quarts at a time to give the berries a chance to be buried under other berries and thus sprout more readily. Then, each time you rinse, they will get all stirred around and rotated for uniform sprouting. I always do mine in a Rubbermaid dish-washing pan. I find it very conducive to sprouting and very easy to drain out of one corner if I distort the pan into a narrow pitcher spout at one corner and use the help of a sprouting screen after I pour off most of the water. The newer dish pans are more flexible than the old style was.