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Oster Beef Jerky Kit – Review

For Christmas last year I received several very nice presents from someone close to me who knows how much I love to entertain and prepare foods. One of those presents was an Oster Beef Jerky Kit.

On the box it states this device will allow you to “Make Jerky at Home with Ease.” The kit includes a Large Jerky Press with Trigger, 3 tips for a variety of sizes, and 5 Jerky Seasoning and Cure Packets. I suspect there may have been an ulterior motive with this present since the giver and I go camping together.

After borrowing a food dehydrator for the purpose, I finally decided to try my hand at making my own jerky. The instructions were very straightforward and the kit has everything needed to make jerky except for the meat.

An advantage to making jerky using the press is that you use ground meat rather than purchasing whole pieces and slicing them. This makes the process both easier and less expensive plus the seasonings permeate the meat without having to wait for it to marinate.

The process is very straightforward. Simply blend the ground meat with the ingredients in the seasoning packet (spices and cure), load the meat into the press, select the tip you want, and squeeze. The ‘soon to be’ jerky is extruded out the end in the shape you have determined, whether it is narrow or wide strips, or a round stick.

I recommend extruding right onto the dehydrator trays to minimize handling. Making a nicely shaped piece of jerky takes some skill which for me I think may take some time. It requires a steady hand and careful moving of the press as the meat comes out the end.

When the plunger in the press is extended to its farthest point there will still be enough meat in the tip to make more jerky. At this point you can disassemble the press and force it out of the tip manually. Or simply remove the meat from the press, roll or pat it with your hands into the desired shape, and place on the dehydrator tray.

Stack the trays in the dehydrator, plug it in, and let it do its work. Depending on the dehydrator, the thickness of the meat, and the amount of moisture needing to be extracted, the drying process can take from 4 hours to overnight.

Check the instructions on your dehydrator for the manufacturer’s recommendations and safe food handling information which will vary depending upon which type of ground meat you are using.

For this jerky I used lean ground beef, although you can use any kind of ground meat. Just make sure you are familiar with safe food handling practices for the kind of meat you are using as some require heating the jerky to a certain temperature even after drying and refrigerating until serving. For the batch of jerky sticks I added 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the seasoning to give it an extra ‘kick.’

You don’t have to limit yourself to the seasoning packets available through Oster. After doing some research you can experiment with your own seasoning combinations. However, I can’t stress this enough – make sure you are aware of and observe safe food handling practices for the type of meat you are using.

Buying jerky can be very expensive and making it the conventional way can be difficult, time consuming, and costly. I found using the Oster Beef Jerky Kit for making my own jerky to be easy, quick, and inexpensive. As far as quality in comparison to packaged jerky purchased from the store, I found the jerky made using this method to be comparable.

You might expect jerky made from ground meat to be crumbly and unstable, but this process actually produces jerky of much the same texture as that cut from solid pieces of meat. For anyone who loves to eat jerky, and is willing to put in a little effort to save a significant amount of money, I highly recommend the Oster Beef Jerky Kit. It delivers what it promises by allowing you to “Make Jerky at Home with Ease.”

Blk Water – Review

If you haven’t seen Blk Water yet you owe it to yourself to check it out. Here’s a link to the BLK’s website you’ll notice their slogan “The Dark Side of Water.” They have a very different take on bottled water than most conventional bottled water. To give you an idea, the bottles on their home page, they are clear bottles. There is also a hidden message written in black on the bottle, can you see it?

You’ll have to find a bottle to find the hidden message! (truth be told I forgot to snap a picture of it and I don’t want to steal someone else’s) The water looks similar to a cola in color, though this is not carbonated. They claim there are no colorings or artificial ingredients added to create this opaque water, it’s done by minerals left in the water by mother nature. Sounds kind of gimmicky to me, but it’s not everyday you can drink black water that you literally can’t see through.

A friend brought this to a party we were having so we decided that everyone should try it, as reluctant as some were! It tastes confusing, you’d expect it to have a strong taste or smell and it does not. I think it smells faintly metallic but it could be my senses playing tricks on me. The statements made about it’s taste ranged from, it tastes like regular water, to it tastes like a swamp smells. I personally thought it had a taste, slightly metallic, slightly like lawn clippings smell with a unique mouth feel. Though it was far from in your face and pronounced, these were very subtle flavors. Overall I thought it was an enjoyable water to drink and I’ll probably try it again and do further testing with it.

I’m curious how it is at various temperature extremes, as ice and heated to make tea or coffee with. If you wanted to go all out you could cook with it, can you image using it in rice or with pasta? I think they would make great ice cubes, in particular at a cocktail party.

I certainly wasn’t turned off by my experience with it and I would try it again, it’s a great topic of conversation, in particular if you have it on hand to share with people. The uses as a gag prop are nearly limitless, I think it could be a lot of fun to use as a prank.

Here’s another image of it in a clear glass

I don’t think I’d drink it every day, not only would it get a little expensive but part of me thinks consuming abnormally high amounts of any mineral is probably not wise. That said the company claims it is entirely healthy and they are probably right I am just a little weirded out by black water! I say that in a good way, it’s a very different take on bottle water and if your curious I’d strongly recommend trying it.

Charcuterie

Just like every particular field of interest, food and food preparation has a vocabulary all of its own. While doing research in preparing the recipe for and writing an article about Homemade Pork and Beans in Lukewarm Legumes, I learned a new food term. That food term is Charcuterie.

The word Charcuterie is derived from the French term cuiseur de chair, which means literally “cooker of meat.” Since the 15th century, Charcuterie has been considered part of French Culinary Art. It is also used to describe a shop selling cooked cold meats.

The book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn is about using the process of Charcuterie to cure various meats including bacon, pastrami, and sausage. It is a great resource on this subject and is highly recommended.

Charcuterie is part of the garde manger’s repertoire of skills which was originally intended as a way to preserve meats before the availability of refrigeration. Today these techniques are used for the flavors produced through the processes.

Fatback, which I used in the recipe for Homemade Pork and Beans, is an important element of traditional Charcuterie. It is a particular cut of meat taken from under the skin of the pig’s back, with or without the skin. In some European cultures it is used to make specialty bacon and is considered a delicacy. At one time in areas where olive trees were difficult to find, fatback was Italy’s basic cooking fat. It provides a rich, authentic flavor for the classic battuto (sautéed vegetables, herbs and flavorings) that forms the basis of many traditional Italian dishes.

Tiziano’s Ristorante Italiano Review

When I travel to the VA metro area for work, I try to find a hotel to stay at that won’t break my wallet. Little did I know, that this trip I’d stay at a hotel near a wonderful family run Italian restaurant that I would absolutely enjoy.

Tiziano’s Ristorante Italiano is in a small brick building. It didn’t look like it had much to offer from the outside. I watched it for a couple of days when I would drive by to see that it looked rather empty. I was wondering to myself if the place was even open. One day after work I had such a hankering for Italian cuisine that I thought I’d stop by. Tim was with me. We pulled up to the door and saw the open sign. However, there was one problem we noticed, no one else was there. The parking lot, which wasn’t that large, was entirely empty. We both looked at each other and then said to one another, “maybe we should try some place else and the empty parking lot is a sign”. So that night we did and tried another restaurant.

Although, we had a nice meal that night elsewhere, I kept thinking about this other restaurant. I wondered why no one was eating there. Determined to try it out, I talked Tim into coming with me for lunch the next day. This time when we showed up there were two mini-vans parked in the parking lot. I thought, “well, this may be a good sign”. We parked and walked indoors to see this beautiful open restaurant with a bar area, as well as the main dining floor, and a section of dining that was farther in the back and up a few steps. There was only one other table that I could see that was there while we were.

The dining area had a faint yellow paint on the walls and some very nice paintings hanging from the walls. My favorite part of the room was the archways. They were everywhere. You can see them in the picture below of the main dining room. You can find this picture and more on their website under “gallery“.

Main Dining Room at Tiziano's

Based on what we saw, it appeared this restaurant was a family owned restaurant. An older gentleman, who we believe may have been the father, brought us to our table. A younger woman, who seemed that she may have been the daughter, waited on us during our meal. Both the host and the waitress made us feel welcomed. They had heavy Italian accents, which made Tim and I more excited hoping that meant authentic Italian cuisine.

We were not disappointed. We both ordered from the lunch menu. I got the fettuccine alfredo (one of my favorites), and Tim got the chicken parmesan. Our meals included a salad and bread. The salads and bread were okay. Nothing terrible, but nothing to really write home about either. One piece of advice would be that the butter could have been more room temperature so it was easier to spread on the bread. It’s a shame that we didn’t get it with spices and olive oil for dipping. That would have been lovely to have and would have alleviated the hard butter issue.

Slightly disappointed from the starters, we still felt this quaint restaurant had promise. When our meals came, we were pleasantly surprised. We were given very generous portions. I took half of mine home with me. I thought the alfredo sauce was very light, yet had that nice sharp parmesan taste. It was creamy and the noodles were cooked perfectly. Tim’s chicken was nice and moist and he really enjoyed his meal as well.

Now, it has been a couple of months since we went there, and I am now writing up this review. Looking back at Tim’s and my meal, I remember my meal being very good and remember the creaminess and taste of the alfredo and the noodles being a much better experience than my visit to Vapiano’s (see review for Vapiano’s for more information). However, Tim remembers liking his meal, but wasn’t blown away. He doesn’t remember exactly how the tomato sauce was, he thinks it may have been semi-chunky with a touch of pepper, but not much. I guess this says that we both really did enjoy our meals here, but at the same time, they weren’t so amazing that they stuck with us. With that being said, would we go here again? Sure. The food and service was great and very affordable, our whole check was less than $20 for both of us. Would we recommend this place to you? Well, you may not experience an Italian cuisine awakening, but you will get good food. You just need to come inside and ignore the fact that the parking lot may be empty. In this case, we learned not to judge this restaurant by its parking lot.

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