homemade jerky

I recently got re-obsessed with pinterest and have been looking up dog treat recipes on it. On Wednesday, I found a few recipes for different jerkies that seemed easy enough to do since I have a dehydrator and chicken in the fridge that I needed to use.
In a large bowl, I mixed 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. I then cut the chicken breast into thin slices (and cut off all of the fat) and threw it in the bowl. Marinate for at least an hour - I'm lazy so I let it marinate in the fridge overnight.
Thursday morning, I put it on the dehydrator racks (cook at the temperature your dehyrator suggests!) and left it running while I ran errands. My chicken took about 8 hours to cook. I'm not a fan of jerky but it didn't taste bad to me and the dogs loved it!

When I was running errands while the dehydrator was doing its thing, I picked up some pre-sliced beef liver. Since it was already cut thin, I sliced it into smaller pieces and put that in the dehydrator when I took the chicken out.

This ran for 6 hours before I shut it off. This is what it looked like after 1 hour.

And when it was done.

I took it out and let each pup try a small piece of it before packing it up. They loved it. Luna loved it so much that when I tried to give her another piece, she bit my fingers that were holding the jerky until I let go which is something she's never done before! I think it's safe to say that she approves of this treat and I can't wait to experiment with different marinades and meats for jerky for them!