The Pauley Principle: A Week of Getting Ready for Farm Market

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.

Monday, March 12, 2012

A Week of Getting Ready for Farm Market

Someone recently said, "It must smell great at your house!"

Oh, I wish I could just show you! Thanks, dr momi! (You can catch her blog, Homesteading at Redtail Ridge, for more interesting accounts of adventures in homesteading. Check out my sidebar for a quick look.)

The aromas of cinnamon, freshly baked bread and spices fill the air all day on Fridays at our house since we started this little adventure called a farm market. I save Friday for the bread-making and baking so that the items I offer on Saturday are as fresh and tasty as possible.

On Mondays I plan the offerings and make sure I have all necessary ingredients. Then I spread out my work for the week. For example, I plan jams and jellies for mid-week.

Next market day is Saturday, March 17 *St. Patrick's Day*, so I'll be offering a few special treats: "Irish Pub Pickled Eggs", Irish soda bread (Thanks for that suggestion, Jenny!), and some green popcorn balls. In addition to fresh unbleached white bread, whole wheat bread, and cinnamon rolls and/or cinnamon bread, we'll also have banana nut bread, angel food cake, apple and blueberry pies, and strawberry jam.

Before long, we'll have seasonal vegetables, fruits and some flowers. Later Chris has plans for expanding with gardening and farming supplies, and eventually Christmas trees, but we're taking baby steps for now.

Our farm market is open every Saturday. We are located at 2589 Blain Highway, Waverly OH 45601. "LIKE us" (Old Homestead Farm Market) on Facebook for all the latest photos and comments. When you come out to our farm, watch for a vintage Airstream camper and a flying cow.

Yes, the aroma is wonderful at our house on Fridays! Even better, it's followed on Saturday by a fun and relaxed atmosphere at our farm market where we share samples of fresh and delicious foods and enjoy the company of great folks! Come and join the good times and the conversations if you're in the area!

We're inventing our own little farm market, as opposed to a farmers' market, so if you have some ideas to pass onto us, we would love to hear them! Ours is a very small operation of homesteading and producing cottage foods. Chris and I provide fresh home-grown produce and freshly baked goods made with only the best ingredients we can find, something that's good for us and for the community. We work hard so that others will benefit, and a share of what we produce goes to charitable causes. Why do we do it? Because we can? It's not easy but fun and real!

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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!

Monday, March 12, 2012

A Week of Getting Ready for Farm Market

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