All roads lead to Indian cook books...

I suppose 'Indian food' may seem like a good theme between these two meals. It's an obsession I don't deny but the only one real pattern with any food I eat is gluttony. This time inspired by two very different ingredients that just happened to take me to the same place.

I like sprouting. I like it very much. Although I don't really know what to do with my sprouts once they are there. Because the information on the topic is rather... well has a tenancy to be grounded neither in an understanding of science or taste.


One exception is to find recipes from places that view sprouted food as food rather than a mark of piety. Which is why I decided to make the Sprouted Moong from The Settler's Cookbook, which is wonderful for many other reasons too. Served with naan bread rather than puri because it was 60p on the about to go off shelf in tesco. It was delicious if a little over facing with all those sprouts!

When we went to Occombe Stephen asked if there was any particular vegetable I'd like as a treat (shut up! That is so romantic!) and I picked up an Aubergine. It's been a while since I've cooked an aubergine and well it seemed about right.

So I consulted every recipe book I own and decided on Aubergine and Potato with Pickling Spices from Indian Every Day and the Tangy Tomato Rice to go with.As often happens when I'm banking on eating the leftovers I didn't get this one quite right. The spices where spot on, the taste of nigella and fennel especially brilliant but my cooking... not so much. It could have done with about five minutes more to accommodate the bigger potatoes but the real disappointment was the aubergine. Just plain bitter.

So I'm kind of between love and hate with this one. It's definitely going to be made again probably not with the charming looking, lethal tasting graffiti aubergine though.

Is there a fan club?

Mainly because I'd already ordered my seeds before I heard about the Dig In campaign it was a bit too late by the time the seeds arrived.

They came before we went away last week and by this point I'd already got flowers on all my Gardener's Delight Tomatoes (the Beefsteak behind from being planted months after), I'd filled up the space in the salad trough reserved for the Lollo Rossa and my carrot tub was already full, my spare seeds freecycled.

Stephen's Dad reports that he's still waiting for his as the BBC has run out. Still it's a worthwhile project and it's given me the opportunity to plant Squash and Lollo Rossa which I hadn't planned or though of. And watching the videos and the bits on Gardeners World has given this beginner veg grower some reassurance.

The Squash and Lollo Rossa where planted just before we headed to Chester. I scrounged an extra pot for the lettuce and I don't have to worry about how I don't have room to grow a squash for another month or so. They have both come up already along with a chickpea.

I sprouted the chickpea before going to Chester and poped it in a leftover pot of compost. According to Alys Fowler's (who I admire for her red hair and fun outfits as well as her gardening awesomeness) book The Thrifty Gardener this little guy will grow into a charming plant with leaves like saw teeth. May as well try it.

Speedy slow food

There is a lot of experimenting going on in our kitchen right now. I'm trying to perfect my bread, we're working out ways to get free salt, and I'm sprouting.

I'm a vegetarian that gardens so my interest in sprouts has, possible, not come as a surprise to you. It's just... sprouting.

I'm willing to be hippy enough to pick nettles to wash my hair with and to treat myself with plantain leaves when they sting me. I'm hippy enough to get upset looking at a butchers. Hell, I'm even hippy enough to drink organic, fair trade green tea.

What I'm not hippy enough to do is agonize over the amount of enzymes in my diet. Because I sat through GCSE biology. Since most sprout advocates don't agree with me on this I've been a little wary.

But hay. I got a cheap sprouting jar and fearlessly scooped into it a tablespoon of mung beans. Following the instructions in the always inspiring The Window-box Allotment. I have more than enough to last.

Sprouting was fun and home sprouted mung bean sprouts are better than the watery intensive supermarket kind. They had a sharp, almost peppery taste and, of course, the texture in unbeatable.

I made them into a nice Chow Mein. I adapted the recipe to use my Riverford leeks, carrots, and portobellos. Hopefully next week I'll have the recipe for you, it will take me that long to grow more sprouts.