Beef Jerky, Dehydrator Style
My food dehydrator (well, technically my MOM’S food dehydrator) has been sitting on a shelf in my garage for years. Possibly decades. I had some bottom round steaks in the freezer (you remember, from my braising experiment?), so I decided it was time to make some beef jerky. Everyone in my family loves jerky, so I figured it would be a hit. My mom used to make this same jerky for snacks for me when I was a kid. I loved it then, and I love it now.
I thawed the steaks, and sliced them into strips (with the grain, per the recipe, and about 1/3 inch thick). There was about a pound of steak. There were a few fatty strips, so I roasted those in the toaster oven for Mindy, who was VERY appreciative.
The marinade was simple: 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce, 1 tsp garlic salt, and 1 tsp seasoned pepper (which I didn’t have, but I DID have a bottle of ‘Gullah Luv’ seasoning from South Carolina, so I used that).
I threw the strips into the marinade, and let them soak up all the flavorful goodness for a little more than an hour.
Once they were done marinating, I spread them out on the racks of the dehydrator, and plugged it in. The recipe said to dry for 5 to 7 hours, but my jerky took a little over 9 hours, for whatever reason. It turned out perfectly, though, and I think Rich has eaten almost all of his half already, 2 days later.
It’s nice to be back at home!
Day Eight – Corpus Christi
Today was definitely NOT an exciting day, which is just FINE with me. We got up fairly early and went to breakfast with Aaron and Uncle Jimmy at El Sol de Mexico. I think that’s my favorite breakfast place in Corpus Christi. They have the most amazing machaca anywhere. It’s the real stuff…dried beef (think jerky), eggs, fresh jalapeños, tomatoes and onions, served with rice and beans. A HUGE breakfast, but delicious.
I walked down to the beach, and took a very long walk. There were no people on the beach, but a ton of birds. I was kept company on my stroll by Great-tailed Grackles, Loggerhead Shrikes, A Long-billed Curlew, A Spotted Sandpiper, Rock Pigeons, Semi-Palmated Plovers, Sanderlings, Starlings, Laughing Gulls, and Ring-Billed Gulls. I loved walking along the beach, and I picked up a HUGE pocketful of ‘sea glass’ to make jewelry out of eventually.
Ring-billed Gull, Great-tailed Grackle, Loggerhead Shrike:
European Starling, Laughing Gulls, Spotted Sandpiper:
Rich and I went to a Mexican place called Acapulco for lunch. It wasn’t the chain restaurant they have in SoCal, and we didn’t know what to expect. We’ve had fairly bad luck with finding good Mexican food ANYWHERE in Texas, so we were almost shocked to discover that the food was really good! Still a different style of Mexican than we like, but it was very good!
I took a nap, and we’ve both been enjoying some cable TV. This is part of what makes a vacation nice…NOT doing something every minute. Ahhhhh. I think tomorrow we are going to the Port Aransas area, and maybe I’ll get to see some more bird photos!
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