Homemade Beef Jerky = Success!

I decided to just dive in and do something awesome with my new dehydrator.  So I made Beef Jerky!

I'm actually very pleased with my $20 Dehydrator.  The dehydrating times are a lot better than I thought, I figured since I didn't buy a "nicer" (more expensive) dehydrator with a fan the times would be a lot longer but they are actually comparable to other top models, in my opinion.  The beef jerky was done in less than 11 hours.  Just be sure to "rotate" the trays so everything gets dehydrated evenly, especially if you have more than 2-3 trays going at one time.  By "rotate" I mean take the tray on top and move it to the bottom, and do this every few hours.

I made some last week and it got gone in 2 days!  So I had to make some more this week, this time I bought a bigger piece of meat so it'll last me longer.  

I didn't really follow a recipe, although I looked through many online.  A lot of people like to use flank steak or round steak.  I used Round Roast, but from what I've read just about any cut of beef will work, just make sure there is as little fat as possible in the meat.  From what I gather you pretty much put what sounds good to you in the marinade.  Here's what I used:

Soy Sauce (this was the main ingredient for my marinade)
Worcestershire Sauce
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (to make it spicy)


Trim as much fat ass possible off the meat.  Cut your meat into 1/8 to 1/4 inch slices.

Marinade as long as you want.  Some people say to marinate overnight, others say 6-8 hours.  On my first batch I marinated it for 30 minutes, and it tasted great.  The second batch I marinated it for 2 hours, and didn't notice a difference flavor wise, the main difference I is the second batch was spicier because it had more time with the crushed red pepper.

Depending on how thick your jerky is, as well as how dry you like it, will depend on how long it needs to dehydrate.
I did the first batch for 11 hours.  The second batch I accidentally went to long, about 13 hours, so it was dehydrated too much.  It's still edible it is a lot easier to tear and will be chewy once your start chewing it.

But if you find you've dehydrated it more than you like I found a trick online that I tried and it works!:
Take a piece of bread and put it in the center of a zip-lock bag with the beef jerky around it and leave it overnight or until the jerky is how you like.  The jerky will absorb the moisture from the bread.  The bread will be dry like toast when you take it out.

$20 Food Dehydrator - Part 2

Well it worked!  It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would.  Then again, I guess it all depends on how many trays you are doing, and how thick you cut your fruit/veggies.  It took less than 11 hours for the apple slices, just a bit longer for the orange slices.

So over all I'm pleased with it.  Not bad for $20!  Now the test will be will it hold up and continue working for years to come?  It does come with a 2 year warranty (of course I have to send in the warranty card first :-P ) but hopefully everything will continue working just fine.  Now let's see what else can I dehydrate?!

$20 Food Dehydrator

Today I bought a cheap food dehydrator for $20.  Yep $20.  But like I said it's cheap, nothing fancy, not top of line, name brand or anything.  I bought it at ALDI's  They've had them in the past but wasn't sure if it would be any good.  They came back again this season and I thought I might as well give it a try instead of waiting until I find $300 laying around that I don't need for something else :-P

Every time I have seen them at ALDI they have sold out pretty quick.  I know one of my area stores has already sold out and another only had 4 left, as opposed to a week ago they had around 15.  It comes with 5 trays, the base, the lid, and instruction manual/recipe book.

I currently have some apple and orange slices in it.  From what I can tell it does not have a fan, so dehydration times will probably be a lot longer than those high priced models.  I may go ahead and add some pineapple as well.

I'll post an update within a day or so (whenever it finishes) and let y'all know how it works!

*****UPDATE 8:08 PM*****

Out of curiosity I put a thermometer through the top and with three trays it is reading 140° F.

Homemade Potato Chips

These homemade Chips are amazing!  They are like the chips from Afton Tavern or the Twisted Chips from O'Charley's.

1. Wash potatoes and cut off any bad spots.
2. Slice potatoes as thin as possible and place them in a bowl of water, with a little bit of salt, as you slice them to keep them from turning brown.
3. Rinse potatoes, then fill  bowl again with fresh water and add some more salt.  Soak for at least 30 minutes.

4. Fry potatoes in oil until golden brown and crispy.

5. Enjoy!  Salt as desired and dip in Ranch or other sauces!

Homemade Turkey Sausage

Well this morning I finally decided to make some homemade Turkey Sausage!  The recipe I used is from http://heavenlyhomemakers.com

Homemade Turkey Sausage
1 lb ground turkey
3 Tablespoon minced onion
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg

 (only some of the ingredients :P )

Mix all ingredients.  Chill for about an hour.  (If you forget to chill this ahead of time…it cooks up okay anyway!)  Form into patties.  Saute in butter.

They turned out really good, although I did not have any marjoram or cayenne pepper.  So this is one of those recipes where you can just add what you have on hand and it should be pretty good! (key words: should be)  :P 

I ended up using about 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey because that's all they had in the packs, and all of the sausage patties still had plenty of spices in them.

There's one spice though that I'm not too crazy about, it's either the Basil or the Oregano, I can't tell which, or maybe both.  It seems to over power the other spices. 

And next time I make theses I will be sure to have some cayenne pepper, because I think it would make a huge difference in the taste.  I also want to try this with ground beef, instead of turkey, because the texture of the turkey is kind of weird. :P  I like ground turkey in recipes, it's just different by itself.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

My wife and I have been watching a show about The Duggar Family, who when it was recorded had 17 children, now they have 19! They are really thrifty (gotta be to take care of all those kids =P ), so on one episode they were showing how they made their own laundry detergent for really cheap! My wife and I wanted to try it out, so last night, that's what we did. =)


Here is the recipe:


4 Cups - hot tap water

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar

1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*

½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water.

-Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - in some stores or may be purchased online here (at Meijer.com). Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!

We just washed a load of laundry with it today and it works great! It may be hard to find some of the ingredients so the Duggar's have included links to sites where they buy theirs. I found everything I needed at Harris Teeter.

Here was the cost of each item at Harris Teeter:
Borax $4.75 (it's $1.25 cheaper at Walmart)
Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda $2.95
Fels-Naptha Soap Bar $1.39

Considering that this yields 10 gallons and you only use a little of the Borax and A&H SWS, you'll have plenty of those to last several more buckets full. So it's practically dirt cheap!!! I even got the bucket free from the Hardee's I used to work at =P (it's one of the buckets they get pickles in, had to wash it a couple of times to get the smell out).

We also made some of this with my parents! They love watching the Duggar's, actually they are the ones that got me started ^_^ I like watching the show because of their Christian values, and a lot of their beliefs are similar to my own. Who knows, the Lord may bless us with 19 kids =P

If you visit their site they have more of their favorite recipes you can use! My parents had made the Tater Tot Casserole from their site, and it was delicious!!!