too… many… recipes…. can’t… choose… >superman kryptonite voice<

So my bread came out ok, but the type of bread I really love is the super hippy, whole grain, no white flour, ultra dense, clear out your intestines bread. I usually buy Alvarado Street Bakery Bread, especially the “California Style Complete Protein” bread, which has sprouted wheat berries and sprouted lentils, and soybeans and all kinds of other crunchy granola things that make me salivate in the supermarket.

I want to make bread like this. I thought maybe going to the Bob’s Red Mill website would help, since I have basically bought out their selection of wheat, bran, flaxseed meal, etc from my local supermarket in order to make said whole grain bread. But there are just too many recipes! I did a search for “breads” and there were about 1000 recipes. I cannot deal with these unlimited options! I am paralyzed with indecision at the sight of them. So I’m going to have to either alter the recipe I have and wing it or find something else to guide me.

But anyway, looking at the ingredients of the whole grain breads I  love so dearly, they talk about sprouting wheat and soybeans and lentils…. everything sprouted. So what does that even mean?, I thought to myself. Well, Google knows all, so off I went.

It turns out that this is something you can do at home, but it does take some time. Normally whenever instructions include the words “2 to 3 days before” or “overnight” I get ADD and drop the recipe like a hot potato, moving on to something with more instant gratification. But I think with this, there’s no getting around it. It takes a while. It’s almost like waiting for grass to grow…. wait. No, it’s exactly like that.

But some kind people have put up good tutorials: Chile Chew’s blog has a great set of instructions for sprouting wheat berries. I especially like the part about pouring the wheat in a natural breeze. haha… too bad I live in the city. Although apparently a fan would do. I can just image Alex coming in the room while I’m attentively pouring things into a large bowl in front of a fan. “Um, WTF.” This one also has good directions, and I think that’s an actual sprouter bowl thingy in the picture, but it looks almost like a salad spinner. I bet you could use that instead…There’s even a website called sprouting.com which has all kinds of equipment and supplies for making your own sprouts, and gives directions for home sprouting in a jar. I also found a great bread baking blog called the Fresh Loaf, which has some basic instructions on adapting bread recipes, and a picture of a great looking sprouted wheat bread that’s really inspiring. I have been lusting after Peter Rhinehart’s whole grain bread book, and I think this has pushed me over the edge to actually buy it.

This whole thing reminds me of growing some little bean sprouts in damp paper towels in biology class in junior high. I guess it’s basically the same thing… minus the awful preteens.

Anyway, just when I thought I was all stocked up on hippy stuff, now I realize that I need much much more hippy stuff so I can sprout things. Damn it.

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