My Tuesday Twister posts are my weekly round-up of what’s going on in my kitchen and our lives, as it pertains to GNOWFGLINS. We try as much as possible to make use of “God’s natural, organic, whole foods, grown locally and in season.” So here we go – I’ll catch you up on what’s twisting in my kitchen this week!
To participate in the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival, visit this post. See you there!
Pretty much the only thing I worked on, outside of our usual routines now, was jerky. This was fun! I tried two recipes. The first was Cheeseslave’s recipe for easy homemade beef jerky. It was easy and it was good! I used a grass-fed rump roast for it, which I cut into 1″ wide sections and then into 1/4″ thin strips. They didn’t turn out much uniform, as you can see by the picture (the piece on the left). That is our lone remaining piece. I didn’t have the worcestershire sauce, I so I just omitted it. The flavor turned out deliciously peppery.
Then I tried another recipe which I found on a forum, which starts with grass-fed ground beef and promised jerky that tastes like salami. This was delicious, too (jerky on the right). I rolled it too thin, but we like this jerky alot because it isn’t so hard to chew. It would make a good pepperoni for pizza!
After I play around with spices and such and come up with some variations we love, I’ll share what we end up doing. Jerky is something we want to have on hand all the time. It makes a good protein snack, as well as being very portable.
But, I’d like to know from you if you have any jerky spice combinations to recommend? Also, has anyone ever made pepper sticks? Do I really need casings? Do you have a good recipe?
So, that’s it for me – what’s twisting in your kitchen? To participate in the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival, visit this post. See you there!
The Gallery of Christmas Cookies was last Monday. At last count, there were 16 scrumptious recipes in it!
About Wardeh
ABCs of Grain Mills. Free PDF tip booklet. 
Take the guesswork out of what to fix, what to buy and what to prepare. This week:
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Wardeh,
Mine was okay. I look forward to reading suggestions from others on how to improve it.
I made jerky too
.-= Millie @ Real Food for Less Money´s last blog post… Tuesday Twister December 22 =-.
Millie – How funny! What did you use for flavor?
Sea Salt, Pepper, soy sauce and a few swigs of pepper sauce. I think I used too much salt.
.-= Millie @ Real Food for Less Money´s last blog post… Tuesday Twister December 22 =-.
I used to work with a Chinese guy who made the BEST jerky ever, it used some Chinese spice, like 5 spice powder. He gave me the recipe (and the spice) and one of these days I will dig up the recipe and try it out. I’ll email it to you when I do.
.-= Rebecca´s last blog post… Menu Plan Monday – Week of 12/21/2009 =-.
Millie – That’s basically what I did, sans the pepper sauce, and adding garlic powder and onion powder.
Rebecca – I love 5-spice and don’t use it often enough! I’d love to see the recipe when you dig it out – thanks!
My jerky recipe is very similar. The process is a little different. To the soy sauce/worchestershire (1/2 c. ea.) sauce mixture I add 1 tsp. salt and 2/3 tsp. pepper. Then marinade overnight. Before I dehydrate them, I season them with onion powder and garlic powder.
If you don’t have a dehydrator, they can be dried in the oven at 150F for 6-8 hours, for meat sliced 3/8″ thick.
.-= Marg´s last blog post… Muesli, egg salad and kefir =-.
Oh please please share the recipe. I have a ton of tough chewy roasts in my freezer and my kids LOVE jerky. I was planning to try some (and sausage) after the Christmas craziness was over.
.-= Sustainable Eats´s last blog post… Pizza Rolls =-.
We need a good recipe for one that isn’t too hard to chew. Sounds like fun making jerky!
so In finally got around to making the jerky – and it’s gone and I’m making another batch now. I used bottom round and sliced it super thin against the grain before it was fully thawed and it wasn’t chewy at all!
1/2 cup soy sauce, huge dash onion powder, huge dash garlic powder and that was it. The kids LOVED it. I’m trying another version with red wine now so it won’t be so salty.
.-= Sustainable Eats´s last blog post… Breaking the Wild Yeast Barrier – or Starting a Desem Day 1 =-.
Kelli – Like Sustainable Eats, our jerky that is cut against the grain is not too hard to chew. But the best jerky we’ve been enjoying that made from ground beef. I’ll work on getting my recipe up here soon.
Sustainable Eats – Yumm!