Horse torture, goats, and tasty food

You gonna act like a terror, Dixie? Oh I'll get you. I'll get you GOOD.

Today was one of the most amusing days I've had in a long time. I tortured my horse but good.

I bought some applesauce and made a big syringe of it. Then I went to catch my horse to offer her dinner. Remember how I told you she's been objecting to being haltered?

I put her grain in her bucket and got the halter. She was standing at the gate staring at the bucket 20' away. I went in the gate and offered her the halter. She dithered around for a while - she'd stick her nose real near the nosepiece, then yank it away and either step toward the gate or drop her head a lot. If she stepped toward the gate, I backed her up - no crowding, thank you. If she dropped her head, I ignored it.

(Head-dropping was, deliberately, the first trick I taught her when I started clicker training. For some reason the first trick is the one animals always go back to, so you want it to be something completely innocuous. If God forbid I ever sell Dixie to someone who hasn't read this blog, they'll be puzzled but not threatened by her head-dropping routine. My Percheron Poppy - I messed up bad with him. His default behavior was pawing. I highly encourage you to play with clicker training, but I strenuously encourage you to teach head-down first!!)

She got mad and chased the goats, then came back. The Imp of the Perverse* had me, so I got bored. I shooed her away, hung the halter on the gate post, and left. I walked to the barn, glanced back at the paddock, and somehow managed to keep moving when I wanted to fall over laughing. I did not think a horse could actually look appalled - I didn't think they had the right facial muscles. She was frozen in disbelief that I had done such a thing to her.

I grabbed the hose and went back in the paddock. Dumped the trough, hooked up the hose, sprayed it out, tipped it back over, and set it to fill up. Then I grabbed the halter. Dixie had been hovering near me but not in my space, so she immediately stuck her nose in the halter and yanked it out again. A couple of repetitions and she stuck her nose in and stood very still for me to tie the halter on.

I let her eat her ration balancer in peace while the tank filled up, then Phase Two Horse Torture commenced.

I whipped out the syringe of applesauce. I squirted a bit on my palm and offered it to her. She dropped her head to sniff it, got applesauce on her lip, yanked her head up and licked her lips, and flapped her head up and down while she tried to decide if she should be mad. When she settled down, I grabbed the halter and went to shove the syringe in her mouth. Of course she tossed her head a few times, then she stopped and started making the spitting-out face, so I stuck the syringe in and gave her a tiny taste of applesauce on her tongue.

Then I stepped back.

She made the headslinging DO NOT LIKE face while she tried to spit out the applesauce, but gradually realized it didn't taste disgusting. It slowly turned into that "I am not sure what I'm tasting" headslinging. She glared at me. How dare I treat her this way.

I squirted some more applesauce on my hand and offered it to her. She went in for it, got it on her lip, and the entire scene started over again, exactly like before. I repeated the process again - that's three times she got DO NOT LIKE oh wait maybe I do applesauce. Then I took pity on the poor creature and turned her back out with her goats and her hay.

I have heard about giving your horses syringes of applesauce. It's a great (mean) trick to convince them that you're not always squirting gross things in their mouth. I have often thought about applesauceing my horses, but never have. I deeply regret that! It's a good training trick, plus it's absolutely hysterical - please, please, torment your horses with applesauce.

Here is a video, for DiJ and my lurker goat fans! This is right after the Great Applesauce Caper. Dixie is mad, you'll see her glaring. The two little ones are Nigerians, and the big one is a grade wether.

Outside critters from Funder on Vimeo.

Food
I read a lot of food blogs to get ideas for what to cook. One Hungry Chef is a real chef, from America, in Australia. He posts very cheffy dishes, but I am looking for inspiration more than an exact recipe to copy, so I got excited about the "Roast Chicken" post. What I had for lunch was completely inspired by Jerad, but didn't look at all like his dish. Last week I turned two chicken legs into rillettes as per the OHC recipe... kinda. I didn't have a shallot, or fresh thyme (just dried) or lemon zest, or 2 kilos of legs - just two leg-and-thighs and some stock and some duck fat. I shredded it up, checked for salt, and sealed it in a little Glasslock container to mellow.

A major drawback of the primal diet is the shocking lack of crackers. Some things just need crackers. Rillettes without crackers sounded pretty awful, actually. Even the thought of making quenelles out of the rillettes wasn't that tasty. I could a) cheat b) make crackers from seeds or c) try the parnsip chips my friend swore by.

Remember when I posted about turnips? My blog posts go up on Facebook, and one of my non-horsey friends said that parsnip chips are like crack. Wash a parsnip. Peel it, unless you can't find your damn peeler. Slice it very thin on your mandoline, unless you don't have a mandoline because you know you will slice off your fingertip. In that case use your sharpest knife and strive to make even slices. Decide that if it's worth trying it's worth trying right and repeat with a second parsnip. Toss them in olive oil and salt. Lay them on parchment paper on a baking sheet, and bake til they're crispy.**

Once they cool a bit, put a gob of chicken rillette on each parsnip slice and eat and be entranced. It was phenomenal. The parsnips are slightly sweet and crunchy and the chicken is unctuous and delicious. All the ingredients are really cheap, too. For bonus points (i.e. what I didn't do) remember to take the rillettes out of the fridge an hour earlier so they're not really cold, and remember to oversalt the rillette when you make them. Hot food needs less salt than cold food.

It was really good. When I run out of food, I am totally buying a whole chicken and rilletting the breasts and legs. I have a porchetta-type roast and a small ribeye roast to eat first, though. Yall do know to buy whole chickens and make stock from the carcass, right? Because that's dead easy and so good for you. I will tell you how to do it Funder-style if you don't know.


*Any Neal Stephenson fans out there?

** I dunno, I was making a pork roast so the oven was on 350 convection and I didn't set a timer. Maybe 15 minutes? Less if you slice thinner. Longer if you slice thicker. You will know. Don't get distracted.

Turnips. Who knew?

(New readers: I have been eating mostly primal for about 8 months.)

I have been stoked for weeks to come tell you how I've lost 45 lbs, but then I got stuck at 43-44 down and then I had a frustrating weekend and ate a huge plate of nachos and, well, let's just say I'm still down 40+ lbs. But anyway, I'm back on track - not particularly to reach a magic number, but because I feel better when I don't eat grains and starchy stuff.

Dinner without bread, potatoes, or beans gets pretty dull, though. I bought some turnips, parsnips, and beets and I've been trying to figure out GOOD ways to cook them. I know you can do faux mashed potatoes with most root veggies, but I rarely crave mashed potatoes. What I crave is crispy starchy salty goodness like hash browns and diced potatoes tossed in olive oil and roasted.

I spent a couple days, off and on, googling for the perfect crispy starchy salty turnip/beet/parsnip recipe, while the roots glared at me from the crisper drawer. I did not find one - the closest I found was this Mario recipe, which I discovered after I had already invented the same thing.

Anyway, a recipe. I have been working really hard on that damn floor, so I need lots of fat and some carbs. Yesterday I salted a piece of pork belly and left it in the fridge overnight. Today I rinsed and dried it, seared it, and braised it in some duck stock at 250 for, I dunno, four hours or so. After the whole house smelled good I'd periodically poke it with a fork, and when it was pretty tender I called it done.

I dismembered a turnip and chopped up some mushrooms, then tossed them in some pan juices with extra salt and pepper and roasted them in a hot oven for a while. When the turnips were almost tender, I cut the pork belly into bite sized cubes and threw it on top to crisp up further. While I was at it, I roasted the rest of the mushrooms in olive oil - they were getting a little slimy and needed to be cooked.

You know, it was really good. And really easy - dicing the veggies probably took the longest. It's hard to go wrong with roasted veggies, and it's really hard to go wrong with a braise. I have half a turnip and half a pound of pork belly for dinner tomorrow night, and like 2 lbs of mushrooms for the Inevitable Omelette.

Now, what do I do with beets and parsnips?


Another thing I've tried when I really want some damn hash browns is latkes. Peel and grate a turnip (or whatever, I think any root would work), then squeeze out all the juice by twisting it in some cheesecloth. Beat up an egg (you knew this had eggs in it) and salt and pepper, then pan fry them. They are not quite as mealy as real latkes, but they're quite acceptable.


And you know what's really weird? All this weight gone and I'm still a damn size 12. I went from squeezing in to 14s all the way down to ... comfortable in 12s. WTF, dude. Ahhh well, at least I don't have to spend a fortune on new clothes.

Thirty

Yall, I have lost thirty pounds. Today I went through my panty drawer and tossed all the too-big undies. (I'm keeping all the too-big clothes - it's almost winter, time to layer!) Yay for primal eating!

I don't look as awesome as Tamara, because I'm not nearly as hardcore as she is. But if you're like me, you're a little intimidated by how hardcore she is. I'm telling you about my own experiences to show you that you can get good results by being halfass primal. Well, more like three-quarters-ass.

I don't usually eat grains (wheat or corn) or legumes. Every now and then I'll desperately want a slice of crispy New York style pizza (Nu Yalk 4 lyfe) so I'll go get one. I don't avoid sugar like the plague - when I think about it, I have a tsp of local honey, which is supposed to help with pollen allergies, and I still have an on-off again relationship with the dreaded Red Bulls. I do consume dairy - heavy cream in my coffee, and cheese when I want cheese. If I was a cavewoman I'd totally catch me a cow or a goat and tame it.

I eat meat, fruit, nuts, veggies, and cheese. I am rarely starving, and I think I eat fewer calories now than I did before, but I don't try to keep count. Yes, it's all expensive, but I eat so much less that I think I'm coming out ahead.

Eating out sucks. There is almost nothing that you can grab for lunch - you have to think ahead and bring food. Your spouse can be a help or a hindrance - my husband is doing the traditional low-carb thing which overlaps really closely with primal eating. A SO who insisted on eating grain-y things in front of you would really suck, so you have to have support.

I never get the starving low blood sugar spikes anymore. I have coffee with cream for breakfast, then I have to remind myself to grab a snack for lunch, then I eat a totally moderate dinner. 1/3 lb of meat doesn't look like much - we always wail about it when we start cooking - but I'm perfectly full on it.

I don't formally exercise, but I do stay busy, as you may have noticed. A lot of heavy lifting! I am stronger now than I've ever been and I just generally feel awesome. In fact I feel so awesome that I have no plans to ever go back to eating "normally." Primal is highly recommended by me.

Now that's more like it

Rode the wild child again tonight and she was much better behaved. We did the exact same route as Monday. She was a little pissy and jumpy for the first two miles then settled right in and worked hard for me. Here's the Garmin info.

Lap 1 was getting out of the subdivision, 2 was slogging up the hill away from home and leaping around, 3 was hauling ass once she realized we were really going to do this thing, 4 was a mistake, 5 was coming back into the subdivision.

Dixie did a cowhorse stop for no apparent reason once and she gave the hairy eyeball to many terrifying white pieces of trash, but she really was a good horse. She has a lovely daisy-cutter pace going down hills, and our "fast" speed sort of rotated between trot, rack, canter, and something in between. I'm really pleased at how the mountains on the Garmin are turning into plateaus. We're not surging between trot and walk, we're steadily moving along. (Well, except for the scary balky hill.)

I told her she was acceptable and I'd keep her for the time being. ;)

Primal update, aka "things I've thought of that are good to eat." We eat a lot of larb, from this recipe, and a lot of tiger cry, based off of this. I am also living perilously but gloriously and making mayo and Caesar dressing from my friend's eggs. It's been two weeks and I haven't poisoned myself yet! I take a big Caesar salad to work about 3 times a week, and I bring egg salad at least once. Egg salad is hella good, yall.

Also Costco sells frozen bison burgers that my husband swears are just stellar. I haven't tried them yet, but he kept himself alive on them while I was off at Tevis.

I will go update the Tevis posts with some strategic pictures. I haven't forgotten you, Lytha!