Jerky!

We have embarked on a new type of food preservation in our house. Dehydrating is something my wife has always wanted to try but never found the time. A few weeks ago she bought a dehydrator and immediately started testing out things to dehydrate. Tonight I joined in the fun and made my first batch of jerky. It is just about ready to go into the dehydrator and thus far smells pretty good. We are cooking the jerky before putting it in the dehydrator because this is recommended by the USDA. Until we are more comfortable with the process we aren't willing to give our children meat that might not be completely safe to eat. Heating the meat to 160 degrees is supposed to make it safer to dehydrate than meat that is raw. It should be interesting to see how it turns out.