When dehydrators were a big fad that first got cheap (I was little), my father started to make his own jerky. I only remember it being a a month or two that he did this (kids have no sense of time), but I do remember he decided to do his own seasoning blend...and made the strips too salty. I think they used it as salt meat (often too poor to easily throw away food).
In spite of having this "negative experience" (y'all, it was nasty), it was probably about one of the first kitchen gadgets I bought for myself some 20 years later. That experience did stick with me: still haven't tried to do jerkey because I am not buying the seasoning for it, and I may oversalt it, as well. I do slice up random sausages and dehydrate them to the leather phase: but that is pre-seasoned. No work, really.
Where I really get my use out of this gadget is in dehydrating veggies. I have made about powdered spinnach and powdered carrots, mosty for volume comparisons.
Other things I dehydrate, so far, are sweet potatoes and yams, eggplant, squash (yellow crookneck and zucchini), kale, and and collard greens.
For the sweet potatoes and yams, I toast the slices in the toaster until they brown (usually 4x through on highest setting), and then dehydrate them to leathers, somewhere between 6-8 hours. No seasoning. I tend to eat them when my stomach doesn't like what I put in it, 1-2 at a time, to settle it.
Everything other than the sweet leathers and flours is dried into a seasoned chip.
The soak:
For the non-absorbant veggies, I use:
2 Tbsp. "Bone chicken broth" or stock.
2 Tbsp. Soy Aminos
2 Tbsp. Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. Paprika
Everything other than the sweet leathers and flours is dried into a seasoned chip.
The soak:
For the absorbant veggies, like eggplant, I use:
1/2 cup "Bone chicken broth" or stock.
2 Tbsp. Soy Aminos
1/3 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. Paprika
I put this in a gallon ziplock overnight, flipping it a couple of times, to evenly coat the contents. Then I lay it out on the dehydrator's grating, and sprinkle parmesean cheese on it. I set the dehydrator to it's proper setting, and let it dry until it is crisp, usually no longer than it takes for the sweet potatoes.
Most of the calories are in the cheese. The eggplant, since it absorbs most of the broth and vinegar, is worth counting the calories on the other ingredients, but that's it.
The squash (without the cheese, this last time, but yes, all the rest of the seasoning), I used in a crockpot stew. The problem with both squash varieties is that they totally go to mush if you overcook them--which is what usually happens in a crockpot. I find that a dehydrated, then "cooked to mush" squash actually holds up better than if I had cut it up fresh or frozen. That stew, my husband insists is the best one he has ever tasted. Good luck on me getting that right, again. I don't even know where to start to write a post on it. Ah, well, next time.
Let's eat!
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