Sprouted salad mix

Our beansprouts still aren’t doing much in the sprouter. They’ve been in there for more than a week now, and we had been hoping to eat them in a stir fry last Monday. At this rate they might just about be ready this Monday coming.

The sandwich mix, though, is another story altogether. The seeds for this are much smaller than the mung beans used to grow beansprouts, and really seem to have taken well to the twice-daily rinsing.

Look at them in that picture – they’s good and stringy and look exactly like we’d expected. They’re now ready for slipping into a sandwich, assuming we could keep them from slipping out of the slices.

The beansprouts aren’t much longer than them, but they are a bit fatter and have benefitted from being moved onto a windowsill above a radiator where they’re getting both more sun and a bit more warmth. Overall, though, they haven’t been a roaring success.

Nevertheless, we’ll try eating these, and give a second batch a second chance.

Perhaps it was beginners unluck.

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Our sourdough starter is maturing

by Nik on March 13, 2010

in Recipes

Sourdough starter

I have to admit, our sourdough starter doesn’t look very appealing at the moment. I think that’s probably a good thing, though, as yeast doesn’t look so hot when you’ve started it on the road to fermentation, either.

It’s been growing for a week or so now, and every day I’ve been adding some more flour into the mix to feed the developing culture. Looking at it this morning, it looks rather advanced, and although it doesn’t smell quite as beery as I’d been expecting, it has turned a bit brown on top, as you can see from the picture.

Unfortunately this weekend is a busy one for us so we’re not going to have time to make any bread (missing the point of choosing this way to make it as it’s inherently slower) but now that it looks like it’s pretty much there I’m itching to get needing.

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Peace has broken out in the coop

March 12, 2010
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The new chickens seem to have settled in well. in less than a week. That’s the good news. What we’re wondering now, though, is whether the real squabbles will start when they begin to mature.

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Our beansprouts are stunted

March 10, 2010
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Our home-grown beansprouts are a lot shorter than we had expected, and look nothing like the kind of beansprouts you’d buy in the shops. We’ve followed the instructions to the letter, which leaves us wondering what we did wrong.

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The new chickens are settling in

March 9, 2010
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Our new chickens have now been with us for three days, and they’re settling in surprisingly well. The worst of the pecking and squabbling is over. The only thing we need to sort out now is sending them up to roost at bedtime.

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Starting to make sourdough bread

March 8, 2010
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Sourdough bread is made using a naturally-occurring living organism rather than traditional bakers’ yeast. It requires patience and care as you grow your own starter, that once up and running can last for years.

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Introducing new chickens to our flock

March 7, 2010
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We are introducing three new chickens to our little home flock. It has led to some fighting as they try and find a place for themselves in the pecking order with the three we already have.

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We’re getting some new chickens

March 5, 2010
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As our chickens start to get a little older and slow down on laying eggs, we’re taken the decision to buy three new birds to add to our flock. We’re picking them up tomorrow, so today is the last day of our current chickens’ blissful ignorance.

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We’re growing our own beansprouts

March 4, 2010
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I never realised beansprouts were mung beans, despite eating them at least once a week. I bet not many other people know that either, when you consider how bad a reputation mung beans have as a staple of itchy, scratchy eco lifestyles.

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Chitting potatoes… at last

March 2, 2010
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Our potato order has finally arrived, so we have laid out the new tubers in the outhouse so they can start chitting. They should be ready for planting by early April for a bumper summer crop.

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