My love for Jerky

Rich and I were driving somewhere...I think it was on our way home from a "guy reunion." The "guy reunion" is an annual summer occurrence where all of Rich's guy friends from college with their respective spouses or significant others meet up for a weekend and have a lot of fun. We have held "guy reunions" for the last  7 years each summer at various Florida locations from Pensacola to West Palm Beach. 

UPDATE (10/18/2012) My blog jerky picture was featured on the Clean Eating Magazine Blog!! 

Guy Reunion 2006

Guy Reunion 2007

Guy Reunion 2009

Guy Reunion 2010

Anyways...we were driving back from a fun friend filled weekend and I had packed beef jerky as an on the road snack with some Sam's Club trail mix the kind with m&ms. He just looked at me and said " You're weird." Typically store bought jerky contains gluten and it's on the no-no list for me and forget m&ms. However, I still have "weird" tendencies and bought a food dehydrator last year. I started reading the Spunky Coconut blog and she does all kinds of recipes with her food dehydrator. I had to have one! My favorite is her walnut granola; yum!

I am an avid Clean Eating  Magazine reader. This magazine if full of top notch healthy recipes and loads of cooking tips. The magazine even has gluten free recipes. This is a win win for a clean gluten free eater such as moi! Earlier this summer the magazine did a weekend cooking project article on how to make home made jerky. I've been wanting to try this for months and finally attempted it this weekend.

Now I used the original recipe  to make spicy jerky. It called for soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce which are typically NOT gluten free. I subbed in Bragg Liquid Aminos - All Purpose Seasoning - 16oz for the soy sauce (or you could use gluten free soy sauce) and I used Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce which is also gluten free.

I used sirloin steaks and marinated them for three hours then I dehydrated the beef in my 
Nesco FD-75A 700-Watt Food Dehydrator for 10 hours at 160 degrees. If you don't have a food dehydrator you can make it in your oven. Here are all the directions to use your oven to make jerky. It is really good, Rich, Bell, and I loved it. Roxy too!

Roxy begging for some jerky

I typically stay away from spicy food, but loved this recipe. I dehydrated two pounds of sirloin and it made half a gallon zip lock bag full of jerky. This will be a definite snack item I will keep my pantry stocked with during the winter.