Rockin' Recipe: Homemade Jerky

Crossposted at CrossFit East Bay.

I'm a big fan of jerky. Delicious, highly portable, packed with protein and naturally low-carb, what's not to love? Well, two things:

• It's expensive.
• Most commercial stuff uses low-quality meat and is packed with sugar and other crap.

With just a little effort, though, both these downsides are easily surmounted by the magic of JDIYDS (Just Do It Your Damn Self).

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbs liquid smoke
• 2 Tbs soy sauce
• Favorite hot sauce (1/4 tsp - 1 Tbs, to taste)
• 1/3c Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbs onion powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 pound (sliced thin), or 1.5 pounds (ground) meat (beef, turkey, whatever)

There are many different recipes out there, this is just one that I've tried and liked. Don't be afraid to google around for something that appeals to you.

Equipment:

• Dehydrator preferred (oven works, too)
• Wax paper, rolling pin & scissors (if using ground meat)
  
• Jellyroll pan with wire rack inserts (if using oven)
  

Instructions:
Whisk together all the spices and liquids in a separate bowl, then mix with the meat (I use a food processor with the dull blade for this). If you are using sliced meat, put the meat and the marinade together in a ziploc bag and leave in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.

Spoon the meat mixture out onto a long sheet of wax paper.

Place another sheet of wax paper on top, and roll out evenly with the rolling pin. The thickness is up to you, but I wouldn't go thicker than 1/4" - the thicker you make it, the longer it will take to dry and the more you'll have to gnaw at it when it's done.

I use scissors to cut the paper into smaller squares, then flip the paper over the dehydrator racks and peel it away. I also score the meat mixture so it's easy to tear into strips when it's done. If you used the marinated/sliced meat method, just remove the slices from the marinade, shake off excess liquid, and place on the racks. If you're using an oven, you'll want to get some of those large jellyroll pans with wire-mesh cooling rack inserts from the local restaurant supply store. Arrange the jerky in a single layer on the rack, and be sure to have space between strips for better air circulation. If you get into doing this regularly, it would probably pay to get one of these fancypants jerky guns so you can skip the previous three steps.

Place in the dehydrator, put it on "meat" and then go do something else for four hours. If you're using an oven, bake it for four hours at 250 - if you have a convection oven, make sure the fans are on. If not, just leave the door open a crack while you're baking it.

1.5 pounds of meat will yield about 12 oz of jerky. That would cost $15 at Trader Joe's, but (depending on what you used) you could make this for well under $5.

A Note to Vegetarians:
When I was a veggie, I tried to make vegetarian jerky, and every attempt was a dismal failure, so I'm sorry I don't have a recipe for you here. Stay tuned for an article on making your own spiced nuts, and if you want to purchase veggie jerky, my favorite brand by far is Stonewall's Jerquee, available at Whole Foods or in bulk online.

QOKAD

By now, the Gallon-of-Milk-a-Day (GOMAD) has become synonymous with Starting Strength and Mark Rippetoe, though the two are actually quite distinct. Rippetoe prescribes GOMAD to skinny adolescents who need, more than anything, to pack on some bulk, and whose metabolism is such that they can afford to take on far more calories than they likely will actually consume in a day. So what is the nutritional content of a gallon of whole milk?

Calories: 2344
Fat: 128g
Carb: 204g
Pro: 124g

On top of everything else you're supposed to eat, that's about a 5k-6k cal/day diet. Not to mention the carbs, which are over twice my daily limit in the milk alone. Yikes! It's no wonder that Rippetoe says, in his own ineffable style:

Older adults using milk for weight gain may find that they get a little chubby on this program. This is because as growth hormone and testosterone levels diminish with age, the ability to easily build muscle on a heavy training program diminishes as well. This means that less of the nutritional input can be converted to muscle in response to stress, and consequently more fat will be deposited.

This is rotten, shitty fact. I personally am offended every time I contemplate this. But the fact remains that older lifters cannot grow as efficiently in response to training as younger lifters can because of their inability to recover, and the efficient conversion of nutrition to muscle is a major factor in recovery.

(By the way, the forum thread that this comes from, a Q&A with Rippetoe on the Strength Mill forums, is well worth reading in its entirety both for the quality of the information contained therein, as well as the hilariously cranky comebacks he fires off.)

Well, I don't want to fork out $7 a day to choke back glass after glass of room-temperature whole milk so that I can gain a little muscle and a lot of fat. Not to mention the logistics (and mockery) involved in hauling around eight pounds of milk all day, every day. It's my hope that there's a better way.

Introducing Kefir

Kefir is fermented milk, invented bajillions of years ago by tribes in the Caucuses and Eastern Europe. You can buy it ($2.69/quart at Trader Joe's), but it's even better if you MAKE it. I've been making my own for a few months now, and it's about as simple a task as you can do in the kitchen:

1. Pour milk into container
2. Add kefir grains
3. Wait 1-2 days
4. Strain out grains, decant kefir into container(s)
5. Repeat
   

But...why drink a quart of the stuff a day?

So many reasons.

COST: Homemade kefir is about $1.75/qt using organic whole milk. I haven't found anything remotely like that in the store.

TASTE: It's goooooood.

EASE-OF-USE: It's a helluva lot easier to down a quart of kefir than a gallon of milk. You can drink that much with dinner, or bring it to the gym as an all-natural post-workout drink.

NUTRITION: I know this will shock the Rippetoe fans out there, but kefir is superior to milk, nutritionally speaking. First, the nutritional profile is somewhat better:

The majority of digestible carbohydrate of kefir is milk-sugar [lactose], of which at 24 hour fermentation followed by 24 hour storage seems to be approximately 3.5%, going by the figures available. This is about 50% reduction of the original lactose content in fresh milk.

Second, kefir is a probiotic (meaning it contains bacteria beneficial to digestion)

Kefir contains live active cultures of normal flora which is made of vary strong strains of microorganisms that help to over take pathogenic organisms, repopulate the digestive tract and aid in digestion. The microorganisms predigest the protein that enchanting protein digest and absorption and also use the lactose thus many people whom have lactose intolerance problem can be consume kefir.

Kefir has the complete proteins that are partially digested and in this respect the body easily utilizes them.

...Not sure whether that's a translation or an English-as-second-language issue in there, but you get the idea. At any rate, the second part is the money quote, and the reason I'm doing this whole experiment. Basically, the hope is that by drinking (somewhat) pre-digested proteins, the bioavailability of the protein in the kefir should be higher, and therefore translate more effectively to muscle repair and growth than regular milk.

Who knows whether it will work. I'm not doing a very scientific introduction of the plan, since I'm also introducing meat into my diet, and I'm sure it's all throwing my inner system for a loop. But I plan on trying it out over the course of this strength cycle, and will have a better clue at its efficacy in about eleven weeks.

Polly's Magic Sugar-free Pie

Polly, CFEB kick-ass athlete and (as it turns out) killer cook brought this pie to Evelyn's birthday party, and it was the undisputed hit of the evening. She finally shared her recipe on Facebook, and I'm pasting it here for posterity. It's really delicious: good texture, subtle flavor, not very sweet at all. Perfect with tea or coffee, and a welcome antidote to the sweeter-than-sweet desserts that are everywhere these days.


Time required: A bunch. Best if done in between tasks while at home for several hours.

Ingredients:

Filling - ( I don't usually measure, but I will estimate)

• 1 acorn squash - any hard winter squash (Sugar Pie Pumpkin, Kabocha, butternut, or Delicata all work pretty well). Or get canned pumpkin. Mine ended up being about 1 and 1/3 cup of squash glop.
• 2 eggs and one egg yolk
• 1 cup heavy cream (my preference) or you can use condensed milk
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 or 1 tsp of each - ginger, cloves, and nut meg (or use pumpkin pie spice if you like).
• 1 tsp vanilla - optional (I forgot to put it in. Keep in mind that many have sugar in them. Avoid those)
• 5 pitted Deglet Noor dates. I am sure any type would work. Add more if you want it sweeter.

Crust -

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup dried coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup roasted white sesame seeds
• Add some ground up pecans or whatever nut you like.
• Key ingredient: 3/4 cup butter - cubed.
• 4 tsp or so ice cold water.
• Left over egg white from the filling

Whipped Cream-

• 1 or more cups heavy cream
• 1 or more dates to sweeten
• about 1 tsp vanilla, or other liquor if you like
• Spices: add some cinnamon or other spices you like.

Making the filling (the easy part): Cut the squash, take out the seeds and strings, and cube it. Steam or steam-bake it (approx 30-45 min). Spoon out the meat of the squash and allow to cool before blending. Put everything in the blender or maybe a food processor and blend until it is completely combined and there are no chunks of dates. Put that in the refrigerator. Keep in mind that you can increase the ammount of squash/pumpkin that you use, just keep the cream and egg ratio relatively the same.

Making the crust (If you know how to make a crust, just do it your way): Make sure the cubed butter is cold. I put it in the freezer for maybe 10 minutes. Put it in your food processor and pulse it until the cubes are about pea sized. I don't have a food processor, so I use my hands. and just mush it until the cubes are pretty small. Add ice cold water a tsp at a time until everything just starts to stick together. Ball it up or form it into a disk and put it in the fridge in wax paper, or if you don't have wax paper or a plastic bag, just a container will do. You can leave it in the fridge for an hour or more, but if your impatient, you can throw it in the freezer for lets just say, 10 or 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 450. Use some flour, and roll the dough out on a cutting board or hard surface until it will fit your pie pan and is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 inch thick.

Cooking the crust: Now that your crust is in the pan, cover it with tin foil and weighted material to keep from creating bubbles (I used dry beans that came most of the way up the sides). I poked some fork holes in the crust as well, to prevent bubbles. Bake for 10-20 minutes (check on it), until the sides are just starting to brown. beat your egg white a little and brush it onto the crust. Bake uncovered another 2-3 minutes.

Turn your oven down to 425 and pour in your filling. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn down your oven to 350 and bake another 40-50 minutes or until you stick a knife or toothpick and it comes out clean. Let it cool for about 2 hours. Refrigerate it if you like it cold.

Make the whipped cream just prior to serving it. Make sure everything you are using is as cold as possible - freeze or refrigerate your equipment if you can. You can do it by hand, or use your preferred method. I just grind up the date(s), add in the cream, blend, put it into a bowl/container, then mix in the vanilla and spices by hand after it is whipped.

Rockin' Recipe: Broccoli Curry (Red, Yellow or Green)

It's been a while since I've posted one of these, and in honor of the no-sugar challenge, I'm going to try and share a few more of my sugar-free, low-carb, high-protein, vegetarian dinners (that can easily be adapted to omnivores). This is a weekly staple in my house: it's easy, fairly quick and very flexible, constructed around a few vital ingredients but open-ended enough to accommodate whatever I've got in the fridge. It also makes leftover lunches for two days, which is very handy.

Ingredients:

Protein: I use two cakes of TJ's high-protein tofu, but you could just as easily use chicken or, I assume, pork or beef.

Curry

• One can of coconut milk
• A cup of broth
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1-2 tbsp Thai Kitchen Red or Green Curry Paste, or a couple spoonfuls of yellow curry powder
• 1/2-3/4 cup peanut butter (optional - I combine this with the red curry)
  

Veggies

• One onion, finely sliced
  
• I always use a bag of TJ's broccoli, to which I may add some combination of the following:
• A head of cauliflower
• Baby carrots
• A bag of spinach
• Half a bag of frozen peas

Preparation

• I don't really know how meat works, but I just brown the tofu with some oil in a skillet.
• In a separate saucepan, I'll cook the onions (and maybe some garlic) in oil over medium heat until translucent.
• Whisk together the curry ingredients separately (except peanut butter) and add to the onions. If using peanut butter, add it now so the heat will help soften it and mix it in.
• Once the curry sauce is simmering, add the broccoli and any other veggies (except peas). Stir to coat, then cover and let steam a few minutes until the broccoli is tender.
• Add the tofu and stir. When almost ready, add the frozen peas and let the heat thaw them.
• Spoon into bowls and top with salted cashews, if you've got 'em.
  

Eureka! Home-made protein bars

I have been plagued by discontent with protein supplementation for quite some time now. At first I liked ThinkThin bars, but then I read about the evils of aspartame and all the other crap that's in them. Clif Builder Bars are good-tasting with responsible ingredients - but they have a lot of sugar in them, and cost about $2 a pop - which adds up. And the protein mixes are no better - I couldn't find anything that didn't have sucralose or worse, and they're always cloyingly sweet and frequently have highly questionable ingredients.

A lot of research pointed me to TrueProtein.com, which lets you make custom blends of various types of high-quality proteins with various flavors, including no flavoring or sweetener at all. So I took the plunge and ordered three pounds (a fair amount) of mostly high-quality whey with some casein, which came out to $38. Now I just needed to figure out the most palatable means of ingesting the stuff.

After much experimentation, I have finally figured out a home-made protein bar recipe that I'm really happy with. With only four ingredients, these little puppies taste EXACTLY like raw peanut butter cookie dough, provide 19 grams of protein with only 4 grams of carbohydrates, and have no artificial chemicals or sweeteners. AND they only cost 72 cents each! In short: just about perfect.


Ingredients (per bar):

• 1 scoop (15g) protein powder (I use a pure unflavored custom blend of whey/casein)
• 1.5 tbsp peanut butter (salted crunchy, of course)
• .75 oz heavy cream
• half a packet of stevia

For experimentation, I found it was better to make them two at a time, and now that I have the recipe I make a batch of 8 or 10 for the week.

Preparation:

• Mix peanut butter, protein and stevia in a bowl - it will be dry and flaky, with small chunks.
• Add cream and mix until blended
• Portion out (each bar is 1/4 cup), wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Nutritional info (per bar):

Calories: 276
Fat: 21g
Carbs: 4g + 2g fiber
Protein: 19g

Notes

• It's kind of hard to overstate how much these taste like raw PB cookie dough. It's uncanny.
• I have tried almond butter in several permutations. The texture comes out very gluey. It's not inedible, but it's not really enjoyable. The peanut butter makes them nice and crumbly with a great mouth feel, while you really have to choke down the almond butter. I have read about people mixing almond butter with coconut oil for a snappier texture, but haven't had the nerve to try that yet. I also need to try cashew butter.
• I broke out the prices of the ingredients, and it comes to 72 cents per bar. This would go down even more if I bought the protein in batches of more than 3 pounds, or found a cheaper source.
• It's important to use heavy cream. I tried half-and-half, and the texture was gluey and chewy like with almond butter. Nowhere near as good.
  
• Despite all their positive attributes, these ARE gut-bombs. DO NOT EAT within two hours before exercise. You will deeply regret it. I did. There is a lot of fat in them, and they will fill you up like crazy.
  

Rockin' Recipe: Cauliflower-crust pizza

So what does a vegetarian eat when he tries to pack in over 160g of protein a day without going over 100g carbs? Stuff like this! Actually, it's pretty freakin' delicious. Thanks to George over at the CF nationals for posting it on his recipe blog.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cauliflower, steamed and grated in Cuisinart
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese, grated
• 2 eggs
• few tsp spices (oregano, basil, parsley, fennel...whatever you like)
  
  
• 1/2c marinara
• 2 veggie sausages (Tofurkey or Field Roast)
• the rest of the mozzarella
• some parmesan
  

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450 degrees farenheit.

Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray.

In a medium bowl, combine cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Press evenly on the pan. Sprinkle evenly with fennel, oregano and parsley.

Bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven. To the crust, add sauce, then toppings and cheese. Be sure your toppings are already cooked.

Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted. Serves 4.

Nutritional Breakdown
(per serving)

533 calories
32g fat (53%)
9g carbs + 7g fiber (8%)
43g protein (38%)

Rockin' Recipe: Egg Salad Salad

A good lunch, quick and easy to whip up, provided you have some hard-boiled eggs lying around.

Ingredients

• 3-4 cups raw baby spinach
• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 1 Tofurky sausage
• 1 tomato
• 2-3 tbsp your favorite vinaigrette

Preparation

Mash up the eggs with a fork and stir in 1 tbsp or so of salad dressing until they're the proper consistency. Saute the sausage in a pan. Combine everything into a bowl, pour on remaining salad dressing, and dig in. Serves one.

Nutritional Breakdown
(per serving)

616 calories
37g fat (54%)
14g carbs + 12g fiber (11%)
43g protein (27%)

Rockin' Recipe: Ma Po Dofu

OK, I realize this looks pretty much like dog food, but really it's one of our favorite dishes, and I make it nearly weekly. Packed with flavor and protein, it's an adaptation of a classic Szechuan dish that Iron Chef Chen made all the damn time. It's also really easy and quick to throw together, which makes it a winner in my book.

Ingredients

• 2 packages Trader Joe's High-Protein Tofu, cubed (30 oz)
  
• 1 package Yves veggie ground beef (16 oz)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• 1 tbsp crushed ginger
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
  
  
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 4 tsp hot bean paste (I like Broad Bean paste)
• 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 cup veggie chicken broth
• 2 tsp corn starch

Preparation

In a large skillet over high heat, saute the tofu in the peanut oil, turning often, until the sides are golden brown. While this is cooking, whisk together the sauce (soy sauces, hoisin, broth, bean paste and corn starch). Once tofu is browned, add the veggie beef and stir to combine. When heated, stir in the crushed garlic and ginger and stir for a few seconds until fragrant. Pour in the sauce and turn the heat to low, simmering and stirring for a few minutes to let the flavors mingle. Turn off the heat and allow to cool a couple minutes, which will active the corn starch and thicken the sauce a little, so it coats the tofu.

Makes 4 generous servings. Can be served with brown or white rice, but if you're avoiding grains or high-carb foods, I like it on a bed of roasted cauliflower or asparagus.

Nutritional Breakdown
(per serving)

470 calories
21g fat (40%)
21g carbs + 6g fiber (18%)
53g protein (45%)

Rockin' Recipe: Kale, Sausage and Beans

Ingredients

• 1 bunch fresh kale, chopped
  
• 4 veggie sausages (Tofurky or Soy Sausage)
• 1 can white kidney (cannelini) beans
• 2 oz chopped walnuts (~1/4 cup)
• 1 or 2 large shallots, sliced
  
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• spices (salt, fresh pepper, red pepper flakes, italian seasoning - whatever works)

Preparation

Saute the sausage in a little oil until cooked, set aside.

Heat up a couple tbsp olive oil and add the shallots and walnuts until the shallots soften and brown a little. Add the garlic and spices for a few seconds until fragrant, then pour in the beans and stir. Add the kale on top of the beans, then cover and let steam a few minutes until the kale softens. Add the sausage, parmesan, and the rest of the olive oil, then stir to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve dusted with a little parmesan.

Makes 4 servings approx 2 cups each. Goes great with red wine or a tall glass of milk.

Nutritional Breakdown
(per serving)

620 calories
34g fat (47%)
36g carbs + 10g fiber (29%)
40g protein (24%)

The fat is easily adjusted by using less olive oil, cheese and walnuts. These can almost be omitted entirely, though of course flavor will suffer.