Last week, we had a lovely visit with one of my brothers and my niece, Annie, who had never visited Denman Island before. We had a great time showing her around and feasting on J’s various new vegetarian recipes. Annie shares my obsession with uber-healthy eating, so we spent a great deal of the time sharing techniques and recipes. She knows I’m big on sprouting and happened to mention that she sprouts all her beans before she cooks them because it increases their nutritional value by leaps and bounds. I had a quick look in my cabinet and found three types of dried beans–lentils, white beans, and chickpeas–and promptly began sprouting them. The white beans and lentils sprouted very quickly, and the lentils were delicious and crispy raw (they’d be great on salads). I used them in a couple of recipes, and froze the rest in muffin pans to add to soups and chilis.

 

I made a vegetarian chili with all three types of sprouted beans. It was very good, but so filling that neither J nor I could finish it, and I was still full this morning (and we’d had a five-mile walk after dinner)! Hmmm…I wonder if sprouting beans makes them more filling (well, I’m sure that’s a rabbit hole I’ll fall down this afternoon when I’m supposed to be working on my paper).

Here’s a picture of the chili:

I also made lentil soup with the sprouted lentils, but I won’t bother with a picture because lentil soup always looks kind of nasty (like the mud soup Em used to make in the garden).

The chickpeas never got the long sprouts on them like the other beans, but they did have little buds (and I was growing impatient), so I cooked them up for a nice red-pepper, black olive, and sprouted chickpea hummus. It’s really delicious–a bit grainier than my regular super-smooth hummus, but I like a grainier hummus sometimes (and this one is really good). I’ve included the recipe else where on this blog, so I won’t reproduce it. I did add a bit of veg broth because it needed some liquid. Here’s a pic:

We’re having guests this evening, so we’ll serve it with crudites and tortilla chips as an appetizer for the fabulous feast J has prepared!