Sprouted

I love the internet.  Before the internet, where did we watch videos of exotic baby animals and learn about up to second breaking news celebrity gossip?  Need to prove to your friend the obvious answer of who would win in a match between a giant mantis and a spiny leaf insect? Youtube has your answer: Monster Bug Wars (awesome show!).

The internet has a lot of awesome, useful things.  I love to cook, and I'm always looking to make something new.  So low and behold, having mastered dry beans, I realize that you can sprout beans.  Yes - bean sprouts, like you buy in the store, you can make that at home and its pretty much the easiest thing ever.  I'm talking 5 minutes of effort, and no special equipment.

I followed this website: eHow - Sprouting Garbanzo Beans - and simply used a large metal bowl and a paper towel.  You can soak them anywhere from 36-72 hours.

Day 2 - Delicious!

After a day, the sprouts had tails about 1/4 inch long.  Personally, at this stage I thought they were still too crunchy.  By day 2 I was AMAZED at how much the sprouts had grown - the tails were closer to an inch (see above)!  To see things in my garden take weeks or months to produce, sprouts are like instant gratification.  At the end of the 2nd day, I found them to be more to my liking for not only putting in other dishes like mung bean spouts, but also straight on salads.

Hooray for sprouts!!