Jerky Gun

Before you get all excited thinking this is a post about poor hand control I'm going to head you off. This is a post about a fun gadget every kitchen should have; a Jerky Shooter. A guy I worked with for many years used to bring the best jerky to work, usually made from moose, but it wasn't traditional jerky. It was more like a Slim Jim, soft and easy to eat. And then he shared his secret and now several years later I'm sharing it with you all.

With father's day on the way I needed to put together packaged for the fathers in my life. I just love care packages! And I don't think a care package is complete without a little homemade jerky so we busted out the jerky gun. See:

One of the things that makes this awesome is that you use ground meat. You don't have to slice a hunk of meat and worry about making sure it's all an even thickness and then wait for it to set. Oh no! Dump meat in bowl add cure and seasoning mix and shoot. The jerky gun comes with a variety of packets, but once you run out even our tiny grocery store carries jerky mixes that work well.

After you fill the cylinder you squeeze strips on to your dehydrator racks. Don't have a dehydrator? Then you can even make it in your oven. Isn't this cool?! I do have a pretty awesome Excalibur dehydrator that the man I married got for me years ago and it's one of the best presents ever.

We loaded it up and in a couple hours had yummy jerky. I do long strips and then break them into smaller bits when it's done doing it's thing.

Oh look you can see a little peak of my happy purple Kitchenaid!

The kids keep trying to pilfer the jerky, but I'm making sure we properly pack our father's day packages first. If you're a father getting a package pretend you didn't read this. Well, there's more than just jerky, so you can still be surprised. :)