Make It From Scratch: Jerky

Welcome to our first installment of the Make It From Scratch series!

Mmm...jerky...

Let's all admit it: you like jerky.  Everybody likes jerky.  Easy, fast protein, great for hikes, road trips, and camping, you can stash it in your bag to have for emergency protein whenever and wherever hunger strikes.  To most people, this is a food item you always buy if you want to eat it.  The time and equipment involved to make your own jerky is not appealing at all, especially if you have a job and/or kids.


I honestly felt the same way, and also felt I could not justify buying a huge hunk of beef to just dry it out, since we prefer to buy grass fed beef (which is a tad on the spendy side.....).  But we stopped buying jerky a couple years ago when my oldest was diagnosed with her food sensitivities, because one of her no foods is ...soy!  Which is in pretty much every single commercial jerky in the form of soy sauce.  That delicious, savory, salty flavor that IS jerky flavor...now forbidden.  Bummer!  In those type of food situations I tend to just say:

"Oh well, no jerky.  Moving on!  Find an alternative and just forget about jerky forever." 

But then a couple months ago I decided to give homemade jerky a try, just to see if it was easy or affordable or doable for me.  And boy was the result amazing!  Have you ever had homemade jerky?  Oh man, oh man.  It is so good!  The flavor is better, the texture is better, everything about it is better than store bought!

I used a recipe from a cookbook I have.  You can find recipes for homemade jerky pretty easily, but below are the basic steps to making homemade jerky.  It is totally worth your time; this is one convenience food that you will be glad to have in your repertoire.

 Equipment:

Cutting board
Sharp knife (If it ain't sharp, just go make something else.  Really.  Any knife less than super sharp is worthless for cutting food.)
Medium bowl
Wire rack
Sheet pan/jelly roll/cookie tray that above wire rack fits into
Foil or parchment paper

 Ingredients:

1 pound lean meat (beef, chicken breast, turkey breast, etc.  I use a cut of beef usually labeled London Broil.  It is nice and lean so perfect for jerky)
Sea salt
Soy sauce, Tamari, or coconut aminos (we use coconut aminos)
Seasonings of your choice like garlic powder, onion powder, honey, paprika, chili powder, etc.

Method:

Place your protein of choice on your cutting board and proceed to slice it with or against the grain of the meat, depending on your desired end result.  If you slice it with the grain your jerky will be chewier and not fall apart, which is how I prefer it.  If you slice it across the grain it may fall apart after it is dried, but it will be much less chewy.

See the grain of the meat running left to right on the piece to the left?  I am going to cut with that grain for nice chewy jerky.

 Slice your protein about 1/8 of an inch thick.  Try to be as consistent as possible so all of your meat will dry evenly.  As you slice it place it in your medium bowl.  It can help to freeze your meat for about 30 minutes prior to slicing it to firm it up a bit.

Slicing 1/8 " thick

Pile 'o' meat

 Once all the meat is sliced, wash your hands.  Now add your seasonings!  Use anywhere from 1 to 3 teaspoons (or more!) of your choice of seasonings.  I use a teaspoon each of granulated garlic and onion, plus a heaping teaspoon of pepper.  Add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and then slosh in about a third cup of soy sauce, tamari or coconut aminos.  Mix it all up with your hands to get it evenly coated.  Wash your hands again!

Adding seasonings

Marinated jerky

Place your marinating meat in the fridge or leave on the counter for one hour.  Go catch up on emails, sitcoms, laundry, whatever.  After an hour, set your oven to 200 degrees F.  Get our your sheet pan and cover it with a sheet of foil or parchment.  Place the wire rack over it and begin to place your strips of meat on the rack, close together, but not touching.  You may need a second rack and sheet pan.

See, I needed two trays for my batch of jerky.  More jerky!

Now, gaze upon what you have created...the hardest part is over!  Oh, wait, scratch that, the next step is the hardest.  Put your jerky in the oven and smell it's deliciousness for 2 hours, then check it to see if it is dried out so you can just eat a piece warm from the oven.  Mmmmm, so good, right?!

This has been drying two hours, it is just right for me.

If you want it more dried out, check it every 30 minutes or so until it is dried to your liking.  Let cool completely, then put in an airtight container and store in the fridge.  Yes, yes, I know.  You want to be able to keep it in your bag for emergency protein.  Well, go right ahead!  Just be sure to actually eat it that day or the next.  Trust me, you won't be able to help yourself anyway.


This amount of jerky will last us a few days, maybe a week if we ration it out.  The kids even like it which is amazing.  Now go forth and make jerky!
 

Weekly Series: Make It From Scratch!

Hello, friends!  I am launching a new weekly series here at TGN, and I am super super excited about it.  Every week I will be blogging about a different food that many people typically buy at the store, and sharing how you can make that food yourself, from scratch.  Some will be a bit more involved, like pickles or tortillas, and some will be super easy-not-really-even-a-recipe recipes.  You are going to love it!

Something I love to do is cook, and I look at making my own crackers as a fun project with tasty results.  Since we discovered Big Sis's food sensitivities we have been making even more foods from scratch than ever before.  Honestly, it is so very satisfying, and the girls love to help out.  As The Hubby and I are both cooks (no longer professionally, but still...) we are making it a priority to teach the kiddos how to cook.  And kids love to help!

I will be doing a mix of original recipes as well as directing you to other blogger's awesome recipes that I make over and over at home.  There are a lot of great and talented people out there, so I'm going to share the love! 

Check back soon for the very first Make It From Scratch post!

Mmm....bacon...

As if the world didn't already have enough information out there about bacon: how to cook it, how to cook with it, how to make it into dessert, jam, candy; how to decorate your home or adorn your body with versions of it.  But I can't help myself; I need to add a little something to that bucket of bacon knowledge.

You see, like most meat-loving humans around here, we love our bacon, too.  In fact, if I cook bacon for breakfast, I may as well not bother cooking anything to accompany it for the kids.  They don't even look at anything else on their plates, having eyes only for that crispy, succulent portion of the "pig meat!".  That is what they sometimes call it; I am trying to teach them that the meat we eat comes from animals, not just from the store.  More on that another time.

I thought I would share how we cook our bacon when we have it for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner, for that matter.  If we cook it when Hubs isn't home, then us girls get to eat more of it.  Shhhh, don't tell him!  Mu wa ha ha ha!).  We bake our bacon in the oven, not just because it cooks more evenly, but because we can cook a whole pound at once, and the stove isn't splattered with bacon grease either.  I also don't have to babysit it, I can be preparing the other breakfast dishes (not that there are ever multiple breakfast dishes, I'm talking some kinda vegetables, and perhaps throwing a bowl of sliced apple on the table).

Our kids prefer almost perfectly cooked bacon, as in "squishy ones", which the Hubs and I find disgusting.  Now, don't get all worked up, we are certainly not serving our children raw bacon!  As if.  They just prefer the deliciously crispy and unctuous fatty parts of the bacon, over the meaty bits.  And in our oven, our bacon cooks a bit unevenly.  The 4-6 slices of bacon in the center of the tray are a bit less done than the perfectly rendered slices on the ends of the tray.  So, kid bacon in the middle, grown-up bacon on the ends.  It works out perfectly for us.  And the grown-up bacon is especially good when you crack some black pepper on top of it before you bake it.

The bacon we love and splurge on is sold at our local natural market.  It is Beeler's, (Beeler Pure Pork)and they make a garlic pepper flavor as well as uncured hickory bacon.  We have tried it and it was delicious, but the kids do not like pepper bacon.  So we just pepper our own slices of bacon, and everybody is happy.  If you have never tried Beeler's bacon, you really should.  We have tried many of the "natural" bacons over the years, and this one is consistently the most delicious and the best price.  Now, we do buy Applegate when we have seen it at Costco, but it really pales in comparison.  We also love Beeler's hot dogs and pepperoni sticks.  Great for once in a while quickie kid protein, and mom-on-the-go protein, respectively.

Without further ado, here is our method for baking bacon.  We have a gas oven that heats from below, so your oven may cook it quite differently.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Get out a jelly-roll pan, baking sheet, sheet pan, whatever you call it.  Lay out your bacon directly on the tray.  Crack some fresh black pepper over some or all of the bacon, or none!  Place your bacon in the oven and set a timer for 15 minutes.  Check it to see how far along it is.  If it still looks raw or not done, set the the timer for 5 minutes and check it again.  You should also rotate the tray when you check it after 15 minutes.  It is very easy to forget about your bacon in the oven and it could get over done on you.  We despise over done bacon, but some folks like that sort of thing.  We like our bacon to have the fat about 95% rendered, and the slices nice and caramelized.  Our oven takes a total time of 25-35 minutes to cook our bacon to our liking.  Plenty of time to make some hash browns and coffee, and maybe saute some mushrooms and peppers to go with it.  If you can eat eggs, obviously, those would be perfect.  Us girls here are unable to eat eggs, but the Hubs certainly has them.  Just keep checking on your bacon every few minutes to get it exactly the doneness you like.  When it is cooked to your liking, place the slices on a paper towel lined plate or tray, and serve.  Save that bacon fat to cook with!  Liquid gold!  We use it especially for fried "rice", sauteed green beans, and for oven fries.  Delicious!

I'm sure you have seen someone say that the best way to bake bacon is on a rack in the oven, and I do agree that that works very very well.  But not for us.  Number one, I hate hate hate washing that rack!  So difficult to get scrupulously clean, the way I like to clean my dishes.  And I have found that washing the tray itself is much easier and faster.  A quick soak in hot water to loosen the brown bits, scrub scrub scrub and it is clean!  Lots of hot water, soap and clean it right after breakfast, not the next morning.  It is much easier to clean pots and pans right after the meal, before the food particles have dried on.

So there you have it, my little bit of bacon knowledge for the home cook.  I hope you found it helpful, or at least somewhat informative.  So, how do you cook your bacon?  Perhaps you can try a different way next time and see if it works better for you!

What We Don't Use or Buy

I thought it would be fun to share with you all some of the things we do not buy and do not use at our house.  I'm sure there are some things I forgot, since I don't use or buy them, but...oh well! 


Don't Use:

microwave (we use the stove or the toaster oven)
answering machine (thank you cell phones!)
deodorant (I just don't stink, people)
shaving cream (soap works for me just fine)
martini glasses (my gin and tonic doesn't go in one of those)
non-stick pans (cast iron instead, because I prefer less toxic chemicals in my food)
plastic produce bags (I bought and love reusable produce bags)
pizza wheel/cutter (first, we don't eat pizza, and second, when we did, we used a chef knife)
phone books (thank you internet)
a wristwatch (use my cell phone)
a paper dictionary and thesaurus (might have to buy these for kids to use for school, though...)
make up like blush (my cheeks is always rosy), foundation and powder (too much fuss), lipstick (never liked that stuff)
dryer sheets/fabric softener (we prefer cotton clothing so no static anyway.  Though I would love some dryer balls!)

                                                     Ack, totally adorable dryer balls!

Stuff that may be tossed since I haven't been using it lately:

box grater (I use the grating disk on the food processor)
scrap booking stuff for photo albums (I have been doing this digitally, on Shutterfly; totally love this!)


Don't Buy:

books (library!)
gifts tags, bags (I make them and receive and reuse them, respectively)
paper napkins, plates, cups (except for birthday parties; we use cloth napkins)
regular lotion (I use coconut oil or hard lotion bars)
food items like crackers, granola bars, frozen convenience foods, ice cream, fresh rosemary, chives, parsley, bottled dressings, jam, pickles (we either make or grow our own or just don't eat these)
bottled water (so expensive and wasteful!)
DVD sets of TV shows (of every DVD set of a TV show I own I have only watched them ONCE.  Now, movies are a different story...)
vases (aka clutter, but I do have a few, just no need to add any more)
cable TV (we use Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, and have an antenna for other shows)
The Hubby doesn't pay for haircuts (I cut his hair)
newspaper (thank you internet)
cold cereal (just too expensive and not nutritious enough for the first meal of the day)
Kindle or ebooks (I have the free kindle and get free ebooks!)
commercial cleaners (use homemade or this natural type for cleaning everything)
CDs (haven't bought a CD in years!)
manis/pedis (a once in a great while thing with a sis or friend; like less than once a year)
canned broth (make homemade!)
juice and soda (cavities waiting to happen)
fast food (yuck)
child care (stay at home with kids, have family babysit if needed)
shampoo and conditioner (for me and The Hubby only, girls get shampoo)


So do you have anything to add that you don't buy or use?  I'd love to hear!

Rainbow Bubble Fun

I saw this activity on Pinterest a few days ago and could NOT wait to try it!  I had to wait for a sunny day, though, so we could do it outside.  If you want to try it, here is where I found it:

Rainbow Bubbles

                                                                    Whip it!

 It was actually very fast to do, with my mixer on high speed, each color took only about 20 seconds to whip up.  And no need to rinse out the bowl between colors, either.

                                     Taste the rainbow!  Or, wait, no, please don't taste it.  Ick!

It was sunny outside but not very warm, and kind of windy, but we had fun anyway.  And I am definitely going to do it again once it warms up around here.

                                                        Minnie Mouse is ready for her bubble bath.....

 Swirling and mixing the colors was the best part!  Big Sis and Lil Sis had fun with burying their Minnie dolls.

So our first kid activity from Pinterest was not a fail, yay!

On Food Sensitivities

About 5 years ago, I was one of those people who scoffed at the seemingly ridiculous explosion of food sensitivities and allergies.  I worked in a hotel kitchen at the time, in the bakery, and my co-workers and I had to deal with special food requests on a daily basis.  Vegan, dairy free, gluten free, nut free, egg free, kosher, no strawberries, etc.  The hot side had to deal with the savory special requests like vegan, vegetarian, no seafood, no dairy, gluten free, kosher, etc.

Every time we got a rather lengthy or unusual dietary request we tended to make fun of the person, who we believed was simply getting on the gluten free trend for non-health reasons, or that they were just extraordinarily picky.  If we had a concerned parent requesting we make a special batch of cookies that had absolutely no possible contact with anything that had peanuts on it, we would do so, but with the warning to the parent that we legally could not guarantee it would be 100% peanut free.  It was probably 100% safe, but legally we could not say that it was.  Understandably, those parents never liked that.  If we had a customer request a gluten free substitute for our scones, we scrambled to come up with something, searching the interwebs for something we could make with the ingredients we had on hand.  And then we complained the whole time about the extra work.

It was about this time that my mom embarked on a journey to better health inspired by a book she had read about the most common food allergens.  She shared this information with me, and it sounded really interesting at the time.  I was pregnant with my first child, and the thought of testing to see if I was allergic or sensitive to any of those common allergens was a little bit appealing, but I thought I should wait until after the baby was born.  Besides, if I turned out to be allergic to gluten, what the heck was I going to do about my job?  I was a pastry chef!  Talk about a career killer.

Fast-forward 3 years:  my oldest daughter was approaching her third birthday, and had had kind of dry scaly skin on her cheeks for a long time.  Then she came out in small random spots of excema on her tushie and the backs of her thighs.  By this time I was more on the crunchy lifestyle movement and decided to take her to a naturopathic doctor to get her tested for food allergies and sensitivities.  I had since learned that food sensitivities can manifest in skin rashes, and I suspected she was reacting to something.

I will never forget that follow-up appointment to go over the test results: the utter shock, combined with relief, sadness, and overwhelming feelings of "what do we do now?".  She had tested positive for gluten, eggs, peanuts, whey, oatmeal, and soy.  Jeez, you mean all the foods she likes to eat?  Great!  What is she going to eat?

Since then we have made many small changes over the last 2 years, to gradually get her (and the rest of the family) off of those foods, and made the extra jump to a Paleo diet.  The Hubby is not 100%, and neither are the kids, but I do try to.  Since learning of Big Sis's food sensitivities I discovered my own, as well as Lil Sis's.  Yep, I do not work as a pastry chef anymore, but not because of gluten.  That is a story for another post.

The biggest thing that I have learned during this whole experience is this:  don't judge other people by their food choices.  You have no idea why someone chooses to eat certain foods, or chooses not to, and it isn't really any of your business either.  Maybe they would be willing to share why if you ask, but please don't make fun of them, either to their face or behind their backs.

In the last two years, so many more people have been diagnosed with food allergies and sensitivities, it isn't as hard anymore to eat out with fear of being ridiculed or the cooks spitting in your special request dish.  The food industry had to jump on the allergen friendly wagon if they wanted to survive and compete in the business.  This is a great thing!  Well, the dining options I mean, not the health issues.

At any rate, I am looking at these food sensitivities as a blessing, and am grateful every day for my culinary background.  It has made the transition to a new diet so much easier for our family.  I can hardly imagine what it would have been like if we ate TV dinners and never cooked at home.  So thankfully The Hubby and I both love to cook, and I also love to bake, so we have weathered this diet change pretty darn well.  We eat even healthier than ever before, and I can definitely say my kids eat more vegetables now than ever, as well as a variety of other foods that most kids wouldn't touch.

                                 Who says allergen friendly cake isn't good?  Not this kid!

Now, all we have to do is gear up for packing school lunches in the fall and start dealing with all the food allergy issues that will come up in school.  Can't. wait..........not.

Playing Pretend

Several months ago I read an article in a parenting magazine about kids and pretend play.  It described how important pretend play was to developing kids' brains, how it was their way of learning and processing all the information assaulting their brains, etc.  You know, all that good stuff, stuff we as parents love to hear.  The article then went on to give advice to parents on how to be a participant in pretend play with their kids.  The author understandably had a hard time "getting into" the world of pretend with her daughters.  She found it difficult, and I totally understood that.  Acting like a kid as an adult can be a challenge for some.  For myself it isn't that difficult, but I am not super enthusiastic every time I do it.

At any rate, the advice in the article was to set a timer for 20 minutes, then spend those minutes in active pretend play with your kid or kids, really being into it and creative and letting your kid take the lead and just having fun.  The idea was that the kid would be satisfied with your involvement and after about 20 minutes they would keep playing on their own happily.  Then you could go do something else and feel good about playing with your kid, etc. 

Good advice, I think.  Kids are happiest when their parent or caregiver is down on the floor with them actively playing with them, with the adult giving them undivided attention.  Kids will be better behaved, happier and less whiny, and just be all around more pleasant to be around if their parents (or aunties, grampa, whoever) take the time to play with them without distraction.  I know this, and I know it to be true and helpful.  And yet.....it is one of the hardest things in the world for me to do!

Now, after reading this article I resolved to try it, and see how well it would work for us.  I actually only set a timer a few times.  As a stay at home mom, it was easier after a few days to just play until there was a good time to "exit."  Also as a stay at home parent you don't have the option of playing with your kids for 20 minutes then ignoring them for the rest of the day (or do you?...insert evil laugh...).  Certainly, I was going to be playing with them here and there all day, but trying to be focused on them and not always on my way to do something else was the goal in our play times.

What I discovered with my kids, is that the more focused time I spent playing with them, the more they wanted me to play with them!  Not exactly what I had in mind for our result, but I cannot say that I am surprised.  It came down to personality types; introverts and extroverts.

I come from a family of 7 people, all of us introverts.  This means when we need to recharge our "batteries", we like to spend time alone or with one or two favorite people.  It worked out great in our family!  We are all very fun, loud, silly and playful people, and we always have a blast together.  We just all need our "alone time", too.  So I happily married another introvert, and then we had two kids, one who is an extrovert, and one who I suspect is an introvert (as she gets older the more I suspect it to be so).

For an extrovert to recharge their batteries, they need to interact with other people, to talk to them and basically unload every single thought going through their mind onto them.  An extrovert thinks out loud, an introvert does not.  An introvert stews things over for hours, days, weeks.  An introvert needs to talk decisions out, as she thinks about them.  Introverts and extroverts can both be outgoing, fun at parties, loud, bossy, great leaders, and all that.  The main difference is in how they recharge.

So two introverts who need several sessions of "alone time" a day get a spirited extrovert as their first child and BAM!  Steep learning curve for us!  (Alone time, mom and dad?  Why would you ever want to be alone, that sounds TERRIBLE!  Don't worry, I won't ever leave you by yourself!)

So you see, it did not surprise me one bit that our oldest child, given some major playtime attention from mom for extended periods of time simply led her to want more of that.  I really can't blame her; it is just who she is.  It is now simply our job to teach her that some people like to be alone for awhile, and to be patient with waiting for more playtime.  And that her parents are totally not responsible for keeping her entertained (which she did not like one bit, let me tell you!).

Part of me feels really guilty for saying this, but I really really do not like playing certain types of pretend games with my kids.  Like dolls or ponies.  I really really do not like to.  I tried for awhile but just could not handle it.  So I had to make it my rule that I will play anything else, but not ponies or dolls.  Oh, how Big Sis despises that!  Well, Lil Sis, too.  I am so happy to play Candy Land 3 times in a row, play restaurant, play dance party, school, Legos, etc.  But I just can't do the dollies.  Is that so bad?  I hope not.

Experimenting with active pretend play with my kids also made me think back to my own childhood, to see if I could remember my parents playing dolls with me and......I don't remember them ever doing that.  Now, I had three sisters to play dolls with, so maybe that is why.  Or maybe it never occurred to me to ask my mom to play dolls with me.  I don't know.  The Hubby says his parents never played pretend with him, either.  So, is this another thing that is something today's parents are "supposed" to be doing with their kids because some expert said so?  When the previous generations of parents never did it?  It makes me think of the glut of toys kids have these days and how perhaps that is what is causing our kids to need us to play with them, because there are too many toys, and they don't know what to do; too many choices. 

I also played outside a lot as a kid, and that kept the "I'm boreds" at bay.  Not too long ago, that is just what kids did; mom kicked you outside to go play, and so you made your own fun.  Oh, how I wish I could do that with my kids!  Where we live that wouldn't work too well, besides the fact they are not old enough to roam the neighborhood by themselves.

Perhaps the lesson here is to just be intentional with your kids, to pay attention when they are telling you something, and to purposefully take the time to play with them, but not to feel guilty about not playing with them whenever they want.  They need to learn to entertain themselves, and to respect other people's time and needs.  As with all lessons we teach our kids, it is ongoing and so stinking hard sometimes.  But that is what makes a good parent and a good kid.