New for spring!

Home grown sprouts

A recent trip to my local grocery store left me super disappointed when I was searching for fresh sprouts to add to my sandwiches. I thought they should be pretty easy to grow yourself. So I started surfing the web and sure enough you can make sprouts right on your windowsill, using all sorts of regular dried beans.

I came across this website classbrain and followed the directions, using a glass mason jar to sprout my lentils.

I bought just a regular 1 pound bag of my store brand's lentils. I was surprised how quickly the lentils started to sprout. By day six I had about 2 one inch sprouts coming from each bean, that tasted crisp and fresh. I couldn't ask for a better tasting sprout! (Click the photo above to see my process larger)

From what I've read, lentils are a fantastic source of B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, zinc and much more. Since you can eat sprouts raw, you retain all of that incredible nutritional value, which is an A+ in my book!

The only thing I would do differently next time, is maybe buy organic lentils in bulk. I'm thinking a better quality bean might grow a heartier and longer sprout. I'm also thinking of now investing in a fancy schmancy sprouter, since this was so easy to do!

Below is a close up of day 3 when the lentils began to sprout, and day 6 when the sprouts were ready to eat!



Let me know how your lentil sprouting goes! ♥

Homemade Pop Tarts! (Vegan)

Okay, so I LOVE pop-tarts, who doesn't? I don't however love that they are filled with HFCS, artificial colors and flavors. So I thought I would make my own, I know ambitious right? heh heh. I was searching different recipes online and most were vegan, so I came up with this recipe that is sure to please anyone!




Ingredients ~

Dough
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup veggie oil
1/2 cup ice cold water
1 tbs sugar (optional)

Filling
All fruit spread or preserves, preferably strawberry

Icing
1/2 confectioners sugar
1 tsp water
1 tsp of the above filling
Rainbow sprinkles

Directions
Mix flour and sugar with fork. Stir in oil and water, whisk with fork to thicken.
Pour in flour and mix with fork. Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick and cut roughly into 10 - 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch rectangles. You can make them square if you wish or use your favorite cookie cutter shape. I wanted them to resemble real pop-tarts, so I left mine rectangleish. This should make about 5 tarts.

With a spoon put a dollop of your fruit spread in the middle of each rectangle, leaving about a 1/4 inch all around the sides. With your finger dab a little water on the edges and place another rectangle dough on top, pressing the sides down to seal. Take a fork and dip it in a little flour and press all four sides closed, making a nice seal. With a tooth pick, poke little vent holes on top.
Bake at 400F until for about 15 minutes or until the edges turn a nice golden brown. Let cool completely before icing.

To make the icing mix all the ingredients together until smooth, and more water if needed. Spread thinly over your tarts, and add sprinkles. Eat and enjoy!







I hope you liked this recipe as much as I did, is was a nice little treat for me on a cold and snowy Monday!

♥