Who doesn’t enjoy a tasty cocktail weenie? (Vegetarians I guess) I have always been a fan, but it seems that most are prepared in some form of BBQ sauce. I love a good BBQ sauce, but still it is nice to mix things up a bit. These have a little sweet and sour taste that have been a crowd pleaser with my family for years.
Recently, I was trying to find a neat spooky treat to make for a soccer Halloween party. I found a couple of ideas on pinterest to try. As sometimes happens some of the ideas did not turn out as easy and cute as it looked on pinterest. However, I did have much success making witch fingers. So, when Sarah and I decided to make them again yesterday for our family Monster Mash Halloween party I thought I would take some pictures of the process.
We started with vanilla white chocolate squares. I used the store brand for Candy Quick. I have tried melting chocolate and white chocolate in a double boiler, but it can be tricky. I do find that working with the microwave to melt the white chocolate is so much easier. It comes in a tray that you can just melt the squares in.
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This weekend I decided to dehydrate a batch of beef jerky. Store bought jerky is so expensive and is full of preservatives too. Since I just bought the dehydrator, I wanted to use the jerky seasoning that came with it first.
The directions had two options, ground meat and sliced meat. I am not a fan of ground, compressed, jerky so I went the other route.
I mixed the following together:
I marinated 1 lb of sirloin steak that Jon had sliced in thin strips (less than 1/4 in) over night (approximately 9 hours)
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I have been in want of a food dehydrator for some time. I used to have one many moons ago, but I never got around to replacing it. Not too long ago I found a blog post for zucchini chips by The Creative Home and then shortly after came across a review of the Excalibur dehydrator. This rejuvenated my quest for a food dehydrator.
I had inevitably looked at Walmart first. I then turned to Amazon where I do a lot of shopping. I despise going to the store and shopping. I absolutely love shopping online if I can get a good product and deal with little to no shipping charge. I also happened to have a gift card for Amazon that I had received for Christmas.
There were so many options on Amazon that range from $28 to $385! Although the Excalibur received a glowing review I just cannot fathom spending $200 to $300 on a food dehydrator for the home. That just seems excessive to me. So, I set my limit in the $60ish range and started looking there. I like to read the reviews when available and there were many.
I opted on the Nesco American Harvest FD-37 400 Watt Food Dehydrator for the low low price of $30 and got a 2-pack of the easy clean screens to see how they worked. You can also get the fruit roll-up screens as accessories. All of us have outgrown fruit roll-ups so I did not purchase those.
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