Easy Venison Jerky

So part of off the grid living is learning how to preserve meat. I figured I would start easy and make use of some of the venison my husband provided for us this year. (this summer I would like to try dehydrating out doors)

I have made venison jerky in the past, but have mainly used liquid marinades and used whole muscle meat. So this time I decided I would try burger, and a dry mix. When I was younger my grandmother and I would make jerky and we bought this mix, Hi Mountain Jerky Cure and Seasoning:

It can season up to 15 pounds of meat. I tried it once on whole muscle meat and it was delicious. Plus it is only around 7 dollars and available at Wal-Mart.

The kit comes with a shaker, cure mix, seasoning mix, and an instruction book. The book...I guess it is more of a pamphlet, tells you how much of each mixture to put in the shaker depending on if you are using whole muscle or ground meat and how many pounds. I found this quite useful, as normally I don't follow a recipe for anything, but rather throw things together and taste as I go. But I wanted to get this right so the meat stays preserved for as long as possible.

I have had this ol' thing laying around for a long time. I even tried to sell it in a yard sale once, but it didn't sell, needless to say I am glad about that now :) It is a Nesco Beef Jerky Factory Plus.

It comes with the ratchet style jerky gun, a thin jerky attachment and two sized snack stick attachments  It also came with instructions, 10 seasoning packets (beef pepperoni, cajun, original and peppered mixes) and measuring spoons.
What I really liked about this gun is how easy it was to use. The ratchet style actually helped moderate how thick the strips were. This was very nice because my daughter was even able to help because the flow was so easy to regulate.

Here Jaydin is helping me out by prepping the jerky we made on the dehydrator. Out of about 3 pounds of meat we got 5 full trays and 2 cookie sheets for the oven:

My dehydrator is nothing special. It is an old Mr. Coffee, and doesn't even have a temperature regulator. But I have dehydrated mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, celery, bananas, strawberries and now jerky without a problem.

And we have the finished product from the dehydrator:

It was on the dehydrator for about 8 1/2 hours. I only had to blot the "fat" twice. I think you may have to blot it more if it were beef, but venison is very lean and didn't have much fat to cook out.

The finished product from the oven:

The jerky in the oven was on the lowest temperature my oven would go, and only took 3 hours. The texture is much coarser  and the flavor isn't as bold. But they are both delicious and I will be using ground meat, High Mountain mix and my Nesco Jerky Factory Plus kit again

Until next time God Bless <3

Easy & Fun for the Kiddos

So I grew up and all my mother canned were tomatoes (which is great too, I really enjoy canning tomatoes). My great aunt seemed to can everything from peaches to green beans, but I was too young to see her do any of it...so when I started on this journey I started from scratch per-say.

Luckily for me, the hubby is a farm boy and my mother in law is a very knowledgeable woman! :) Also, apparently my Granny knows a lot more about canning and being self sufficient that I knew.
Since I had very little knowledge of well anything when it came to "prepping", I wanted to make sure my daughter was involved, and grew up with the knowledge of how to prepare foods that, while easier to buy in a store, can be made at home.

So, Jaydin had her cousin Isabella spend the night. We made a couple special drinks for the girls that I found on Pinterest:. Then I wanted them to get involved with learning something new...so I started with butter. It was easy enough...

But here are the drinks we made first



1) Harry Potter Butterbeer:
http://www.designdazzle.com/2011/07/summer-camp-harry-potter-activities-wizard-for-a-day/

2) Shirley Temple, lined with pop rocks (we used Sprite, not Ginger Ale)
http://www.parenting.com/gallery/mocktails-recipes?pnid=619887

Then I used the left over heavy cream from the Butterbeer...I divided it into 2 pint size jars and asked the girls to make me some butter. Of course they looked at me like I was crazy, and even after I explained that if they shake it for a while the cream in the jar would turn into butter, looked at me with a great deal of skepticism. They did shake and shake those jars though and got very excited when it started to thicken and they could hear a ball starting to form. This was just before they were done:

And this was the completed result:

Butter to the left and buttermilk to the right. The girls were so excited! They tasted the buttermilk and loved it, and then we spread the freshly made butter on some saltine crackers and they scarfed them down.

I remembered making it this way when once a year in May we were allowed to skip school and go to the fairgrounds to the "Folk Festival." Aside from making butter there would be homemade flowers, fly fishing lures, and people showing you how to make or do lots of things (like grind up corn) that have sort of been forgotten. Now that I am older I see how great it was that I was able to skip school and learn something...and I am glad I did, because it benefited my daughter too :)

Not Quite a "Dooms Day Prepper"

Well for starters, my name is April. I live in MIchigan, where we are currently covered in snow! We got pounded on this last week! I have a wonderful husband (David) and a beautiful daughter (Jaydin). I'm here because in light of the economy, the government, the rise in the cost of food, and just wanting to be self reliant I have decided to experiment with "off the grid" living.

Some of you are probably like "woah this girl is one of those" and click off the page, but let me say I am NOT an extremest. It pretty much boils down to the fact that I want to make sure I can take care of me and mine if something does happen that would force us to rely on living that is different that what I am living today.

Not to mention I believe God wants us to be prepared:

Proverbs 27:12

“A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” 

So please join me as I try, and probably fail, at learning to be self reliant & research "off the grid" living. 

Also keep in mind, money is an issue for me, therefore I will be "prepping" in spurts and do what I can when I can. I started stocking up on a few items about 2 weeks ago. These are a few of the things I bought along with my first batches of dehydrated food.

I purchased 1- 16oz bag of dried pinto beans, 1-16 oz bag of dried split peas, 2 containers of aspirin  2 containers of triple antibiotic ointment, and 2 containers of salt with iodine. I then dehydrated about a half package of each, celery and carrots (in the small jars to the left). I also dehydrated mushrooms (fresh white button) and sliced potatoes. 

I feel pretty satisfied with this as I had completed this within 2 days of deciding to embark on this journey. Also because it only cost me about 10 dollars. FYI the Aspirin and triple antibiotic ointment are in the 88 cent section near the pharmacy in Walmart, and everything else I either had, or bought on sale. 

I found an awesome site that gives pretty informative articles on off the grid living and a list of supplies to find at the grocery store as survival food. The list can be found here:

http://offgridsurvival.com/survivalfood/