[at-l] Advice for a Jerk(ie)

[ATnavi@aol.com (ATnavi@aol.com)]

My favorite trail meal is my own homemade chili. In order to dehydrate it, I 
cook it, let it cool off, then pour it on fruit leather trays and let it dry 
until slightly firm. I then scrape it into a blender, powder it (to break 
down the meat, pepper, and onion chunks) as small as possible, then put it 
back on the trays to dry throughly. I store it in Ziplocs in the freezer 
until ready to use. It rehydrates easily in a Nalgene; fill a pint bottle 
half full of water and 1/3 full of chili at lunchtime, and by dinner, it's 
ready to pour!

I also use than funky jerky gun & seasonings by American Harvester  to make 
ground beef jerky; I like the texture better than using whole beef. Use 97% 
lean ground beef (or ground turkey, if you like...I tried it but I still 
don't like turkey all that much), mix the spices in, extrude through gun, lay 
on trays, dry overnight. Yummy! Found the gun at Walmart.

It's easy to dry veggies. Get frozen veggies (especially mixed cut veg), pour 
out frozen onto trays, dry until stiff.

Enjoy your new toy!
Navigator