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?!

Ranch Chicken Nuggest & Cheese Fries

I've been really busy with work and other things so tonight we had Ranch Chicken Nuggets and Cheese Fries.  It's very easy, requires very few ingredients, and you can make as little, or as much as you like.

Ranch Chicken Nuggets:
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, cut into cubes
Ranch Salad Dressing
Italian Bread Crumbs

Preheat oven to 400° Dip the Chicken cubes into the Ranch Dressing and then roll in the Italian Bread Crumbs.  Place on a baking sheet and cook for 20-25 minutes or until Chicken is cook through.  Serve with Ranch Dressing for dipping sauce.


Cheese Fries:
1 bag of Frozen Fries
1 can Cheddar Cheese Soup

Cook the fries according to the directions on the bag.  Move fries into the center of baking pan and spoon Cheddar Cheese Soup over fries, as little or as much as you want.  Heat in oven until Cheese is warm.

Cheesy Crockpot Chicken & Gravy

Well tonight we had Cheesy Crockpot Chicken & Gravy!  It's really simple, easy to double and tastes really good!

Ingredients:

4                Chicken Breasts (boneless, skinless)

2    cans    Cream of Chicken Soup

1    can      Cheddar Cheese Soup

1/4 tsp       Pepper

1/4 tsp       Garlic Powder

                  Rice or Noodles (cooked)

Instructions:

Place Chicken in Crockpot and add other ingredients on top.  Cook on low 6-8 hours.  Serve over rice or noodles.

Spanish-Style Quinoa

My brother-in-law was coming over to hang out this evening and I was planning on making some grilled chicken and needed a side dish to go with it.  I remembered I had some Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) on hand because I've been wanting to try it for a long time. I didn't have the guts to eat it plain for the first time, that would just be weird :P , so I Googled me up some recipes! 

There are many great sounding recipes for Quinoa out there, but I needed one that I could make with what I had on hand.  I stumbled upon a recipe on Allrecipes.com for Spanish-Style Quinoa, and I had all of the ingredients except green bell peppers, which works for me since neither my wife, brother-in-law, or me are too crazy about 'em, and it's simple.


Spanish-Style Quinoa

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the quinoa, onion, garlic, and green pepper. Cook and stir 5 to 10 minutes until the onion is tender, and the quinoa has lightly toasted. 

Stir in the tomato sauce and water, then season with the chili powder, garlic powder, and cumin. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir the quinoa occasionally as it cooks. 

It turned out really good!  It reminded me of the rice you get when you go to some of these Mexican restaurants, just without all of the vegetables in it.  And the texture of the quinoa itself was very much like rice, to me anyways.  I might try and play around with this recipe a bit next time, but it's definitely a keeper!  And the quinoa itself is a keeper as well!  I look forward to trying out some more recipes soon!

Grilled Chicken

Yep, Grilled Chicken was for supper!  And yeah, I know you're jealous! :P

Grilled Chicken is one of those go-to meals that are simple, easy, and taste great.  When cooking chicken you want to make sure the inside is completely white, no pink!  If you like to be specific, the internal temperature should be above 165° F.

There are many variations of seasoning/marinating you can do with chicken, they possibilities are practically endless!  When marinating chicken you get the best flavor if you let it marinate over night.  If you're in a pinch with time, marinate it no less than 1 hour.  But the longer the better!

Some of my favorite ways to grill chicken are marinating the chicken with Italian Dressing, Balsamic Vinaigrette, and Bethany's favorite, Lawry's Seasoned Salt.

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.