Soaking and Sprouting

One of my current kitchen experiments is learning how to soak and/or sprout beans and grains.  I've bought sprouted grain from my favorite grocery store, Real Foods, but I it is way too costly and I need to bring down the food budget to a manageable level because we just bought half a cow.

Apologies in advance if this post is a wee bit boring.  Mmm, kitchen boredom.

Sprouted wheat flour mixed with plain yogurt

Anyway.  Rather than continue with buying those costly prepared grains, I'm thinking about investing in a wheat grinder and making an effort to grind my own flour and then soak it (since I don't have a dehydrator to dry sprouted grains) before cooking.  I've experimented a little with some Nourishing Traditions recipes using the sprouted flour and going the extra step of soaking it just to see how it tastes and feels (texture is a big deal! IT IS!).  The pancakes in there are awesome.  My German pancakes, however, flopped.  They didn't puff up at all, and I was quite sad about it.  Maybe next time.

Sprouted wheat pancake batter in the pancake pen

Factoid: I refused to eat German pancakes growing up because I hated eggs from age 5 until 16, when I accidentally ordered some (scrambled) at Denny's whilst on a double date with my then boyfriend's parents and I ate them to save face and they ended up tasting good.  That's the only way I would eat them until this last Christmas when I finally tried German pancakes (which my sisters both love) and I too, have fallen madly, madly in love with them. End random anecdote.


Anyway, the other thing I have been trying is soaking and sprouting beans.  I don't have a whole lot of bean recipes, however, so this is a double experiment in that I'm trying to find ways to use beans.  They're a pretty frugal approach, and combined with rice they supposedly make up a complete protein.  Tomorrow I will be cooking up my batch of sprouted white beans and then making a white bean cake out of them.  If bean cakes actually taste good, I'll make a tradition out of it. For every. single. birthday.  You have been warned.