The Pauley Principle: Maple Syrup--100% Pure YUM!!!

Welcome to The Pauley Principle!

The Pauli Principle, named for Wolfgang Pauli, deals with atoms and electron-sharing that results in new, stronger bonds. Think 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen, a shared delectable (!) electron and VOILA! Water!

Similarly, when you prepare whole food to share with family and friends, especially foods you've grown, something amazing happens. Meals become tastier and healthier. Your soul, not just your stomach, becomes fulfilled. You live life more abundantly as a result. During a shared meal, the bonds that people create grow stronger and become something new: GREATER than the sum of the parts! I give you The Pauley Principle.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Maple Syrup--100% Pure YUM!!!

Think about making your own sometime. Maple syrup is made from sap gathered from sugar maple trees. There are no other ingredients, not even water. The taste is incredibly delicious. Maple syrup that is large-scale marketed and not organic may contain a number of additives: high fructose corn syrup and gluten make production cheaper and faster, adding to profits. Added food coloring allows them to market a consistent color. Done naturally, organically, your maple syrup will darken on its own and differences in color will vary.

This year we're hoping to do another round of maple syrup before the daffodills are in bloom. If you'd like to try it, gather your supplies together, find a good sugar maple tree, and watch for the weather to cooperate. Use trees that are greater than 10 inches in diameter for best results. You'll tap into the cambrium layer and damage to the tree will be minimal, very minimal.

We use food safe plastic jugs, buckets, large 30-gallon cans and pcvc waterline for spouts. Ten to fourteen trees can yield 100 gallons of sap over a week. Figure at least a gallon a day on a productive tree. Your cookdown can be in the range of 40 to 80 gallons of sap for one gallon of pure maple syrup. It depends on weather conditions and the density of sugar content within the sap. Sap gathered early in the season, right at the end of the coldest of winter, seems to have a higher sugar content than the sap that is gathered on toward spring. For example, our first gathering this year gave us a 33:1 ratio but last year's March sap was 67:1, a huge difference and a lot more work!

Steaming off the sap can be hazardous to a kitchen, making it a sticky mess. We've even removed wallpaper with the steam! Not our intended outcome, of course, but we learned from our mistake. Now we cook our sap down outside over an open fire. Like I said, plan ahead. Firewood, a tripod and a cooking pot may be added to your list of needs. Or, you could try a method we did one year: a turkey fryer and propane gas! This is a very clean method for a small batch of syrup. Since you can add sap a little at a time in your process, choose the size cooking vessel to suit your needs. Proceed slowly and with caution. When the sap thickens, it can bubble up and over the edges of your pot, and it can boil at a temperature higher than boiling water when it thickens.

Tap in late winter when the days are above freezing but nights are still very cool. The sap should be running. We use a drill size that matches our pipe. The pictures will give you an idea of a method that works for us. When we finish tapping the trees, we plug the holes with short pieces of dow rod.

Making maple syrup is work but the end result is 100% pure YUM!!! Try Stephanie's Sticky Bun Tea Ring for a quick and delicious treat!

1 comment:

Jennifer DykeFebruary 23, 2011 at 10:58 AM
I really enjoyed reading this :)
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Give Yourself the Fast Food Alternative: 1, 2, 3 makes 4 and More

For many people, late night ballgames, church, work and other events make fast food too convenient to resist, but what's in that stuff? I can't begin to answer. Big franchises such as Taco Bell say the 63% or so that isn't beef is made up of "the secret ingredient". If we consume their food, don't we have a right to know what that secret is? And more importantly, what's it doing to our bodies? My plan is worth the effort since meals eaten at home with the family benefit our physical and mental health.

Here's an alternative and my answer to Rachael Ray's A Week in a Day. I call it 1,2, 3 Makes 4 and More. On the fifth day, Friday, make a quick and easy pizza.
In one day, you can make a roast, a hearty soup, and a one-dish casserole to get you through most of the work week.
Meal 1: the roast with salad and a veggie.
Meal 2: the soup served with warm bread or in a bread bowl.
Meal 3: the casserole with a salad.
Meal 4: soup from Meal 2 served with sandwiches using the roast, Meal 1.
Meal 5: homemade pizza.

Plan meals and shop for it. Then take a few hours to prepare the entrees ahead. Start with a roast seasoned to taste. I'm talking real meat. While that's slow cooking, start chopping veggies and meat for a good, hearty soup, one that will be a meal in itself. Get it started and simmering away and then begin a one-pot meal that takes a little more attention.

This week my plan is Day 1, a slow roasted ham with salad and mashed potatoes; Day 2, minestrone; and Day 3, shepherd's pie. I'm making mashed potatoes for two days (meals 1 and 3) at one time on my cooking day. The fourth meal will be ham sandwiches with minestrone. Salads and breads round out the meals for the week. Fruits with cheese make a quick and good-for-you dessert. A truly delicious recipe for shepherd's pie is in my blog.

Be good to you. Be good to others. On days 6 and 7, change it up by going out, having a pot luck with friends and family or grilling out. Remember, live your life abundantly.

About Venison

Venison should taste really delicious! No kidding. It is my favorite meat, except for crab.

Some things to consider though:
*If you wouldn't think of eating a bull, then don't eat a deer that had huge antlers or was in rut. I don't. It affects the flavor and tenderness of the meat.
*Replace the deer fat with beef fat for your ground meat for an 80/20 ratio. Deer fat tends to be slightly bitter and leaves that thick coating in your mouth that, although edible, is not palatable.
*For roasts, sear with butter and olive oil. These impart a wonderful flavor.
*For sausage, use pork shoulder, at a ration of about 3 parts ground venison with 1 part ground pork shoulder.
*Venison by nature is a lean red meat. A good young deer processed properly will give you many delicious meals.
*Anything you would do with beef, except ribs, you can do with venison. Look for my recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Use either beef or venison. Enjoy, share, and live abundantly.

Plan Now for Maple Syrup

Maple syrup is cooked down from sap that you gather from sugar maple trees. There are no other ingredients, not even water. And it's incredibly good. On the market, maple syrups will often have corn syrup, gluten, color and other additives which can stretch profitability and decrease the steaming time required. Since it takes 35-45 gallons of the thin slightly sweet sap to make a gallon of pure maple syrup, doing it the old-fashioned way takes time but the result is pure YUM!

If you have the opportunity to tap into maple trees and decide you'd like to give this a try, plan ahead. If you steam off the sap inside your kitchen, it can strip your wall-paper! Been there, done that, at our old farmhouse. If you cook it down outside with a gas turkey fryer, the cost can end up being around $8 a pint. We began cooking over a wood fire a few years ago, using a tripod and kettle. Oh, and a large firewood supply. Whatever method you choose, proceed slowly and with caution.

Gather your supplies. We use food safe plastic jugs, buckets, and little water line spouts. Maple syrup production houses will collect into stainless steel vats using long water lines but we simply gather the jugs, pour into buckets and bring it to the kettle twice daily. I buy little pint jugs to store it in. Very fresh, very pure. Start tapping the trees when daytime temperatures are going to be above freezing but nights are still very cold. In Ohio, the sap will be running fast sometime in February.

Try my cousin Stephanie Krupla's recipe for Sticky Bun Tea Ring and you'll want to search for maple trees you can tap into yourself!