Homemade Beef Jerky

A trip down memory lane today as I listened to the hum of the food dehydrator running in the kitchen most of the day. A trip was not complete when I was growing up unless we had a bag full of beef jerky and dried fruit for us to munch on during our travels. There are very few specific memories of the beef jerky on these trips, but my heart swells because the thought of it reminds me of all the places we traveled and fun we had. From the train trips to Oregon to all the campgrounds we invaded, there was nothing fancy about much of it but oh the joy of wishing you could go back and do it again!

These memories are so prominent I have always wanted a food dehydrator to, I guess you could say, relive good times! A couple years back it was on the top of my Christmas list and although I haven't used it near as much as I would like, it makes me smile everything I see it in my pantry. My hope is to start using it more and more to share the same memories with our children!

There really isn't a recipe to share since I used the spices that came from a kit, but you better believe I will be trying my hand at creating my own spice mix when I run out. For now we just tried our first ever beef jerky. We used ground chuck although my book recommended lean ground beef. I am sure the leaner the meat the better the result, but this was just fine for us for now. :)

What's left after the kids snitched about a third of it within 15 minutes!

Without using a scale to be extremely precise, this is what I am figuring for cost, which is pretty much a no brainer!

Cost Comparison: $3.69 for 1 pound ground chuck = approximately 9 ounces dried jerky VS. $5.99 for 3 ounces store bought 

Today's Question: What's your favorite dried item?