The Pauley Principle: Getting Our Ducks in a Row

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.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Getting Our Ducks in a Row

Chris loves a good challenge and homesteading provides several opportunities to stretch one's physical boundaries as well as knowledge base. He has been working on both a brooder and a chicken coop for our chicks, not yet arrived, and he began thinking about ducks. When Chris starts thinking about things, watch out! He'll stay up all night long reading about the topic du jour but it continues night after night until his brain is saturated with mostly valuable, sometimes useless, information that spills over. Right now he's giving me a fact a day about ducks. I'm learning a lot from him, but I have to tell you, raising ducks is something I never thought I'd be doing. So, of course, he wants to try out his new brooder with ducklings first before the chicks arrive. It makes sense, considering the weather. We've had nothing but rain and ducks love puddles!

That brings me to one of his newly discovered and amazing facts:
Did you know that, if you raise little hatchling ducks that haven't been around their mother, they don't get her natural oil and that means that, if they go into a pond without that protective oil on their feathers, they won't swim? Their feathers will instead absorb the water and the baby ducklings will sink and drown! It takes a few weeks for their own oils to coat their feathers enough to keep ducklings afloat! I don't want to test that to see for sure that it's factual so NO PONDS ALLOWED!

Today I placed our order for a few baby ducklings, Pekin ducks from Meyer Hatchery at http://www.meyerhatchery.com. These ducks will be white as adults and I'm actually getting excited.

Part of that excitement is that I enjoy an occasional meal of duck and that gets me thinking about a glass of Pinot Grigio, which reminds me--I still would like to try growing some vintner grapes! I'm looking for just a few vinifera vines that are suitable for growing in southern Ohio's clay soil and humid climate. After all, it takes planning to produce your own meal of duck with white wine but I can imagine that this venture could be fun! Anyone know of a good source for vinifera vines in Ohio? And, please, don't mention to Chris that his "foxy" lady is planning to eat his ducks. (And yes, I mean "foxy" as in "conniving"!)

As you can see, whether ours is a marriage made in Heaven or not, Chris and I were meant for each other. We bought ourselves a beautiful and cherished calligraphy painting for our first anniversary almost 28 years ago that says it all: I was meant for someone who welcomes a challenge!

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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!

Welcome to The Pauley Principle!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Getting Our Ducks in a Row

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