Eternal Hippies A Year Homemade and Beyond

Lisa Bronner, Dr. Bronner's granddaughter, has a wonderful and insightful website and I highly recommend it. I subscribe to Dr. Bronner's emails and it always has useful information and special promotions. But that's not what I want to talk about. I posted a comment of her site in regards to the laundry detergent recipe I use.  http://www.lisabronner.com/sal-suds-in-the-laundry/ Laundry Detergent. I make my own. the recipe is: 1 bar of Dr. Bronner's tea tree soap 1 cup Borax 1 cup washing soda I finely grate the bar of soap ( don't recommend using any other soap than castile soap), then add Borax and washing soda. I mix it well then store in an airtight container. When using, I put 2-4 tablespoons of the detergent in the washing machine, then start adding water and then the clothes. Tip: I used to keep the open containers of Borax and washing soda in the laundry room. But I got tired of having to take a hammer to break them up when I needed to use the...

So last Monday I started sprouting some mung beans to go with dinner later in the week. It takes longer for them to be ready. 1/4 cup mung beans went into a wide mouth mason jar with about 1/2 cup filtered water to rinse. After rinsing, I soaked them in filtered water for 8 hours, then drained the beans and put the mason jar on my wooden rack.  Every 12 hours or so I add water, swish them and then drain. Couldn't be simpler. The plan is to use them in stir-fry either Thursday or Friday for dinner. Mung beans need to be de-hulled before using them to cook. I've seen people use a salad spinner but I haven't much luck using one. I usually put my colander in a bigger bowl and fill both with water and the beans. I swish the beans/water around gently letting the hulls naturally come off. Because the mung beans are relatively big (compared to broccoli sprouts) it is easy to separate the sprouts from the hulls. The key is to be gentle..gentle. After the sprouts are separated ...