Pepper Paints

Thursday’s Recipe ….. Sprouting

Often times my kitchen looks like a laboratory with various nuts and or seeds soaking or sprouting on the counter tops.

Where to start—

So why sprout?  Sprouts are full of nutrition–They are alive, vitamin and mineral content doubles or triple!!  Sprouting pre-digests the nut or seed and  activates living enzymes which also assist in digestion.

What to sprout? Almost anything! Use untreated, unbroken nuts, grain or seed–not seeds treated for planting purposes. Anything out of the bulk bins will probably sprout.

What equipment  do you need? Any container that provides drainage. You can buy nut and seed mesh bags for sprouting or use mason jars with old tights or nylons on the top secured with a rubber band for draining or you can buy a jar with a screen lid or for larger beans/grains I have used a bowl strainer/colander combination.

How do I sprout? Choose something simple to start off with-   Easy beans–mung beans, garbanzo, lentil, kidney, aduki Easy seeds—alfalfa, clover, radish, mustard, feugreek      Easy grains—-whole barley, wheat berries, kamut berries, rye, quinioa  Best nuts—almonds, sunflowers, filberts

For 1 qt finished sprouts measure out:    small seeds 2-3 rounded Tablespoons — Medium Seeds 1/4-1/2 cup —-Larrger beans and grains 1 cup —sunflower seeds 2 cups

Pour into jar or strainer, fill with good water,  let soak over night    Drain using a screen, nylon or strainer of some sort.  Rinse and drain again.  Continue rinsing 2 to 3 times per day for 4 to 7 days depending on the temperature-until desired sprout length. Keep in a darker spot for days 1 through 3 And for the last 2 to 3 days place in a sunny spot to activate their green chlorophyll.  Drain and keep in the fridge for about 7 days.

Once you get started it’s super easy to sprout!  You can eat them raw in salads or on sandwiches (PB&J w/ alfalfa sprouts is a favorite of mine!!) You can add them to soups or puree to make pate or hummus. You can go on to cook sprouted beans and sprouted grains can be dried and ground into flour.  I have a recipe for the mung bean sprouts in the first photo that I will be making tonight! I love to use sprouted quinoa to make tabouli.  Happy Sprouting!

******Fermented Foods update from last week*********

I just tasted them again today and the carrots definitely have a bit of a zing to them but still not enough-I will taste again in a couple of days. The cabbage is now a beautiful purple color but not too tangy yet. The temperature hasn’t been too warm so I think that might keep things from moving along and fermenting. If I had to eat them now they would be tasty but I am hoping for a little more “sour” zest to them! I promise to keep you posted.

Thursday’s Recipe…..Homemade Sour Patch Kids, AKA Snowey Sugared Cranberries

I swear to heaven above that these really do taste like Sour Patch Kids. Only they are a little more healthy!

I saw this recipe on local, Columbus blogger Rachel’s,  Hounds in the Kitchen. I knew right away that I would love this sweet and Oh, so sour concoction!! And boy was I right! I barely have any enamel left on my teeth after eating almost a whole bag of these sugary, sour goodies.

You will need to mix :

2 T of honey with 2 T of hot water in a bowl. To that add grated orange peel, 1/2 t cinnamon (more or less)  and 1 teaspoon (more or less)  vanilla extract.

Rinse a bag of cranberries and add to the bowl, mixing to coat.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment and pour a mix of 1 to 2 cups of powder sugar and granulated sugar.

With a slotted spoon, add cranberries to the sugar mix and coat well.  Let sit about 30 minutes or until sugar hardens. Store in a jar for 3 to 4 days. I didn’t use a slotted spoon so  mine are still drying since this morning. But that didn’t stop me from eating them all day!!!

Making Change

The unplugged theme for this week is CHANGE. I thought about changing up our housekeeping/kitchen area to a store but then I came across a better idea that I wrote down a while ago in a notebook. We changed our puppet theater into a drive-thru in the driveway.

There was a back up of cars waiting to order!

Finally one was able to pull up to place an order. (into the kleenex box shoved on to a roll) There was also a menu next to the speaker- that photo somehow didn’t get uploaded!

Paying

Now that’s service with a smile!

Making change

Getting your goods

and recycling your waste

If you don’t have a puppet theater you could always use an appliance box.

I also found these that I made when Jake was a little.

Cards to help explain change and money.

I see someone was desperate and peeled away five pennies at some point over the years!

If they were smarter they would have just taken the dime off of the back of the card—but more coins must mean more money!!!! Plus that one is so little.

A Day In Our Unschooling Life

I meant to write this post yesterday when things were fresh in my mind, because today, yesterday seems like a blur.  But from what I can remember it felt like a really productive day. And some days are like that around here. But before I type it all out-I just want you to know that this is just how yesterday panned out. I can’t say this is a typical day because most days we have to leave the house for one reason or another.  So this is just a small peek into one of our quasi typical days.

So for starters Molly woke up with a sore throat and wanted some tea. Well that always seems to mean it’s tea time-complete with tea cups, snacks and books.

So before 9 AM we were drinking tea and reading several chapters out of our latest chapter book, WHEN THE CIRCUS CAME TO TOWN. A book based on actual events in the early 20th century. The main character in the book spends some time in her room hiding from her friends because her face is badly scarred from smallpox. So after reading a few chapters we googled smallpox and read a little bit about it and looked at some photos of smallpox scars. I continued to work on the computer while the girls played.

Played what? Played -”Look, I’ve got small pox scars!”

Then I tackled the kitchen while they built with various block, while listening to some ancient Ella Jenkins records.

Molly decided to make a pot of Matzo Ball soup-so out came pots and bowls and knives and veggies…….There was chopping, measuring, stirring, converting.

At this point in the early afternoon-Jake finally woke up just in time to eat lunch! Joe even surprised us for lunch. While they ate, I switched the laundry yet again. Then we all took the dogs for  walk before Joe went back to work and I headed back to  clean up the messy kitchen!

I finally got Jake to sign on to his on-line school and do a little bit of work. We try to do a little bit 4 days out of the week-some days more than others. This is our second year using an on-line school. We are able to work the curriculum to meet our needs. It may not seem very unschooley but it works for us (me)!  We are almost done for this year-whoo-hoo! So after we finished up he went back to his book and TV. While the girls played in the basement-coming up occasionally to show off a new outfit!

Usually on Mondays we participate in an Unplug your kids project. This weeks theme was clothing and Molly loves to sew. You can read all about it here.

So after her project was all finished I put a couple more baskets of laundry away, checked e-mail and blogs on the computer while the girls watched Arthur. Then I made dinner, cleaned up dinner and gathered library returns for my late working husband to run up to the library when he came home at 8:00pm.

Today we were gone most of the day, with pre-school and a playground visit with friends for Ginger and I,  meeting up with  friend at the  library for Jake  and circus and a trip to the zoo with friends for Molly. More dishes, more food preparation more computer time and now 2 paper routes to stuff. 1 for Molly who came home sick from the zoo and one for Jake with the broken arm. And where is my husband who promised to help??? Still at work at 8:45pm! That is typical around here!! But he did come home for lunch yesterday-so I guess I’ll cut him a break. Oops he is here now and ready to start stuffing papers, I better go help!!

Thursdays Quarter Recipe, a little late

Let’s talk about food shall we?! I meant to post this yesterday to coincide with my Thursday Quarter Recipe theme, but well, it didn’t happen. I have been all obsessed with raw food and healthy eating these past few weeks. I have been looking through several recipe books from the library   COMPLETE IDIOTS GUIDE TO EATING RAW, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF RAW FOOD and ALIVE IN 5.  Not that these are the best out there, they are just what I have at the moment. My favorite book that I own is RAWSOME. I look through it so often to reaffirm specifically how good for me certain foods are.   I ordered a few back issues of PURELY DELICIOUS and really like this magazine too. They even sent me a RAW sticker for my van! Bonus!

I want to branch out a bit farther than salads. I LOVE salad and eat it just about every night. It is easy and can be changed up really easily. It is quick-which is important since I prepare a cooked meal for my family and then need to make something for myself too. But if I actually plan ahead and make a menu for myself just like I do for my family I should be able to eat a wider variety of foods  and food combonations. And left overs or pre-made salads are even better when I am hungry and want to grab something quick.

Some friends are also trying to add more raw foods into their diets. We even tried to go to a raw food meet-up but had an older meeting schedule, Next time! So I am going to switch up my Thursday Quarter recipe theme to be RAW. I would love for others to continue to share there recipes here too.  On Thursdays (or Friday in this weeks case) post a raw recipe on your blog and come here and leave a comment with a link to your post containing your raw recipe.

I don’t really have measurements for this but it tasted like sunshine. And god knows here in Columbus, Ohio we need more of that!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lots of celery and mung bean sprouts (that I sprouted myself!!) and onions. Some olive oil, alot of lemon juice, salt, citrus pepper, celery seeds and dill. Really crispy and fresh tasting.

Here are a few websites too if you are interested……..

The Sunny Raw Kitchen

Raw Food Right Now-a list of lots of raw blogs-most of which I have not checked out yet

We Like It Raw- There is a link to Sarmas blog and I am a big fan of hers. Hers is the first raw cook book I ever read and I thought if I ate raw I would look just like her!! I am still trying!

Do you have any raw blogs or web sites to share???