SPROUTS
Sprouts are one of the simplest foods you can grow in your own home, at any time of the year, and with tremendous nutritional effect. Even though large quantities of sprouts may not be amenable to grow in your home, so that you could substitute them for other vegetables on a plate, you can still benefit from the nice nutty flavor and healthy molecules when eating smaller quantities. The most common sprouts used are the ones made of beans, but even other sprouting seeds can be used, including whole wheat or alfalfa or watercress. The nutrition contained within the sprouts is so good you cannot just let the chance go by - sprouts give you lots of vitamins, most prominently vitamins B and C, and also many minerals, e.g. iron.
Keeping it simple in description, sprouts are just newborn plants that don't grow too much before we eat them! They are just a few centimeters long, mainly built upon a stem that grows towards the source of light before it generates a set of leaves that can continue the work of metabolism by capturing the sunlight and using nutrients from the soil. The seed is just the primary source of nutrition, so the sprout can start its journey towards the light. The usual sprout seeds include beans like mung, soy, or alfalfa, but you can also grow broccoli sprouts or onion and chives, which taste mildly and velvety as compared with their mature specimens. One thing of caution though is that sprouts attract a sudden growth of microbes, so they cannot be grown for too long, and in case you buy them in your shop - choose the ones that look non-moldy and firm. Avoid the soft wilted sprouts or the ones that smell off.
Growing sprouts is simple, and there are many vendors that sell both seeds and kits for home usage. In a nutshell, the seeds need to be soaked with water, although not too much, and then the germinating seeds must be kept in good air circulation. This is actually quite fun, watching the new plants take on a new life from a dormant seed. And growing your own food is sort of gratifying.
See a short instructional video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4n5p1rmTiw
So let's get into more detail on how to grow your own sprouts. First, you need to acquire the seeds for whatever you want to grow. Some of them, like beans, are available in supermarkets (and are normally cooked), and some of them need to be bought from special vendors. Now, the first step is to soak the seeds, pretty much like you soak beans before cooking them, but don't wait for too long time. Depending on the size of the seeds it can take from 30 minutes to 12 hours - look at how big the seed gets and drain the water until you no longer see it getting bigger. The draining must be done so the seeds are really drained, a simple way is to put the seeds in a jar, cover it with a cloth and then turn it upside down to start the draining process (or drain on a paper towel). They should just be a little wet. When finished, let the seeds fall back into the jar and put them into darkness for the next day. Continue to rinse them and drain them like described for a couple of days, until the seeds start to sprout. Then, continue like this, and grow the sprouts until they are like 5 cm/2 in, and when they are mature you can put them for a few hours in the light (not directly in the sun but remove them from the darkness). They should turn greener and then also they get more vitamin A. However, for bean sprouts - don't expose them to light or they will get bitter. Finally, when all is done, eat them or store briefly in refrigerator.
This is a general description on how to grow sprouts, and if you wish more details for any specific seed you want to grow then sorry but you need to look someplace else. We just cannot cover everything here. However, the above technique will work for most of the sprouting seeds.
Lastly some words of caution. Some sprouts are toxic, like potato or tomato sprouts, so stay away from them. Some sprouts need to be cooked, like the ones from kidney or pinto beans. Most of the sprouts can be eaten raw, and these include mung beans, sunflower, cabbage, alfalfa, or radish. Some sprouts can be both eaten raw or cooked - lentils, soy beans, wheat.