Or “how to turn ridiculously cheap dried stuff into great, nutritious food”…

See the below recipe for how to do this and more pictures below.

Pea shooting…

From Chris's Stuff | Salads | French

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How to grow delicious fresh pea sprouts for not a lot of money. Use them in your salads for a bit of extra taste and lots of extra nutrition.

Total 00:11

Prep 00:10

Cook 00:01

20 servings Servings 5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940

Ingredients

• 1 packet of dried peas (cheap sort, not split ones)
• 1 Seed tray or satsuma box or similar
• Soil for seed tray
• Water

Directions

1. Soak the peas for 24 hours before planting. How many peas? I spread my peas in the empty container before putting the soil in. You need to have enough peas to completely cover the tray, leaving maybe a pea space between each pea. Fairly dense but not on top of each other.
2. Make sure the seed tray or container is clean.
3. Put the soil in the tray to about 15mm below the top. The try needs to be around 30 to 40mm deep (more and it’s a waste).
4. Scatter the soaked peas over the soil.
5. Cover the scattered peas with more soil so they are about 2 peas diameter covered. About 10mm or so of soil.
6. Dampen but not soak the soil.
7. Put in warm place (window sill?) and leave for 2 weeks. Keep the soil moist but not drenched.
8. After 2 weeks you will have fresh pea sprouts ready for eating:). Harvest them by cutting above the second leaf set. Doing this will allow another crop to grow. It maybe that you get more than two crops but is depends on the strength of the pea.

Tips

• Eat the sprouts freshly cut and raw. Mix in salads or eat as a snack.

– Nutrition Facts

for 100 grams

Calories Fat Cal.

Nutrition Facts Description Wikipedia

Analyzed by Kitchenbug

Completed seed tray. Next time I’ll get better pictures.

After two weeks you get pea sprouts that look like this – ready for cropping as and when you want…

And the proof is in the tasting. Seen here with a nice piece of fresh smoked salmon served on a bed of mixed leaves and fresh pea sprouts with balsamic vinegar as a dressing:)

Well – not so much an introduction as a philosophy…

Sort of:)

Lets face it, cooking on fire is fun. It’s warm and just a bit primitive. But – we don’t always have the opportunity to set up a camp fire because of grass or no camp fires or wind or rain etc etc. All very frustrating.

Well – you can always use a gas burner or something like that but it just isn’t the same. Meths stoves sort of give a nice flame but again, it just isn’t the same.

You need fire, real fire. Wood burning, smoke making, fire…

Building a fire pit can be difficult and lighting your fire on the ground is probably not acceptable. So what to do?

You could always go and splurge a lot of money on one of the many brilliantly designed stoves out there. Like the Firebox. A great design, I want one but I can’t afford it. Or you can go cost efficient and make your own. For not a lot. And the results are pretty good.

How?

Ok – a little disclaimer. I didn’t invent this and I’m making mine after seeing other versions floating around the internet. As most things, this is a work under construction and will be improved upon and worked with over time.

Start of at a local IKEA and look for product called “ordning” or some such. It’s a cutlery drained made from stainless steel.

Get some 30 to 40mm bolts and fix them to the bottom to form legs. I know that this doesn’t seam to stable but it works for now. Some designs I’ve seen have cool detachable legs. This is something to improve upon.

At this point you can use the stove as is. To be fair you don’t even need the feet. Just throw in some burny stuff and light. But we want something a little more classy.

Get the pot and mark out where you want the fuel hole….

Marked up pot for fuel hole

This needs to be big enough to slot in pieces of wood but not so big as to cut the thing in half. I chose two groups of the holes and three rows up. This felt about right and also looked to be popular taking into account other designs out there. Interestingly, some designs have the holes higher up. I don’t know what difference this makes. Maybe if used with a trangia or some other thing?

Now to fire up the Dremel or multi to of choice. You could us a saw or I guess even cutters. I just like the Dremel:-) Cut along the outside of the holes to give as straight a cut as you can. Important here is to wear those safety glasses and don’t jam in the cutting wheel. If you bend it too far and it then shatters, is going to hurt.

Save the bit that you cut out. I’m not sure what it will come in for buy her, you never know.

There will be sharp edges, so use the tool to remove these.

Cheap nasty grinding to alert! Don’t use the cheap and nasty tools that you can pick up in the bargain bins. They don’t last, do a poor job and are most likely dangerous. Anyways, is tone for first burn. All that work, you deserve some fun. Right?

I cheated and used a fire lighter thing. I know, I’m not proud of it and I let the side down but it is what it is…

Building the fire up further, we get to see some potential here. Not just for cooking but also heat, light and general camp comfort…

In conclusion…

This is just the start. Looking around the web there are so many things you can do with this style of some. It’s use as a multi fuel since should not be over looked. The Trangia can be made to fit by using tent pegs through the holes.

Fuel tablets can be used, again the tent pegs and a metal burning plate. Pan stands and grill plates made from computer fan covers? Removable feet and legs. All in one kits where you store your cook waste inside. Etc etc etc.

Lots of things to try. And lots of things to cook. Let’s see how it goes:-)