However, these nicely packaged individual servings can come at a premium. They can often be pricy or difficult to find without going online and ordering in bulk +shipping. That's when the creative types among us come up with ingenious solutions that lets us make our own alternatives using things we usually have lying around.

Which brings me to today's topic - individual size packages of antibiotic cream. I've carried a few of the Neo-to-go (Neosporin) packets with me as part of my first aid kit for quite some time. They're small, handy and easy to use, but they have some downsides. Firstly they are expensive, secondly each antibiotic packet contains way more ointment than I need for a small cut or graze - an awful lot more and once it's been opened it shouldn't be reused or saved.

Here is a really clever solution to this problem that involves a tube of antibiotic ointment (generic), a plastic drinking straw, a Bic lighter and a pair of needle-nose pliers (I use my Leatherman Squirt PS4). We're going to make very small, single use packets of antibiotic ointment using a generic alternative to Neosporin and a clean (unused) drinking straw. If you're like me and have kids, chances are very good that you have an open tube of antibiotic ointment in your medical cabinet. On its own it is too large to carry on a backpacking trip, so we're going to re purpose it.

Place the straw over the opening of the antibiotic ointment tube and carefully squeeze in a small amount of the ointment that is approximately one quarter of an inch in length. You'll notice that transparent straws work best for this.

Use you fingers to squeeze the end of the straw so that it pushes the ointment further up inside the plastic straw. This will provide a clean area for sealing the end of the straw without having the antibiotic ointment ooze out while you are holding it with your pliers.

Hold the end of the straw with your needle-nose pliers so that a small amount of the straw is protruding. This will be used to melt and seal the end of the straw. Take your Bic lighter and carefully melt the end of the straw so that it forms a seal. I like to quickly pinch the melted end with my pliers to ensure a good seal.

Turn the straw around and find the point where the antibiotic ointment went up to inside the straw. Pinch just past that with your needle-nose pliers and cut off the excess straw with a pair of scissors making sure to leave a small amount of the straw protruding for sealing with your lighter just as you did in the first step.

Now you have a single use packet of antibiotic ointment that you can carry with you as part of your UL backpacking first aid kit. These are also perfect for EDC carry in a pocket or even your wallet.

I've yet to have one of these burst or fail on me. Simple, affordable, and very convenient. A great way to make use of those open tubes that are lying around with just a small amount of antibiotic ointment left in them. Pretty clever idea that can be used for other purposes, what do you think?

What's Paleo?

I'm not going to go into the details, but simply put it's a way of eating that best mimics the diets of our paleolithic hunter-gatherer ancestors - lean meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. If you're interested take a look here: The Paleo Diet.

I've been gradually getting more and more serious about eating a paleo diet as a lifestyle and wanted to see if I could find a recipe that I could use for making beef jerky that would be suitable = no soy sauce, besides other things. I was sent two really good examples of paleo jerky recipes from @paleoonabudget via Twitter (love how social tools connect us) and thought that they both sounded good enough to try. Here they are: Food Lover's Kitchen Beef Jerky, and Jen's Gone Paleo Really Tasty Beef Jerky.

My Version

Always one to tinker and hack with something, I adjusted and combined aspects from both recipes to come up with one that sounded good to me. Here's what I ended up with:

• Flank steak as lean as possible (grass-fed), trim any excess fat
• 1 cup raw coconut aminos (it's a substitute for soy sauce)
• 1 cup of organic apple juice (make sure there are no additives)
• 1 cup of pineapple juice (again, no additives)
• 1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tsp of paprika
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• Lime juice (not in the marinade)

Steak strips in the marinade

I used a nice cut of flank steak (personal preference) and made sure to trim off all excess fat, although there was hardly any. I put the steak in the freezer for an hour or two to make slicing it into thin strips a little easier.

Then I put all of the other ingredients (the marinade) into a Pyrex dish and added the sliced steak pieces, making sure that all of the steak was covered or submerged. I think I topped up with a little extra of both juices. I covered this and put it in the fridge overnight.

Dehydrating - Making it Jerky!

The next day (around noon) I removed the marinading steak from the fridge and let it drain through a small sieve for a minute or two to get the excess liquid off. No need to get my dehydrator into a big mess if I can easily avoid it. I used my old faithful L'Equip 528 6-tray Dehydrator. I love this machine!

Steak strips on dehydrator tray

I gave the entire batch of steak a heavy dose of freshly squeezed lime juice, all over. I was very heavy handed with the lime (thinking this would be my "secret sauce"). Then I arranged the pieces of steak onto the drying sheets (mine has six) making sure to leave a lot of room around each piece.

Temperature dial on L'Equip

I set the temperature gauge to half way between 125F and 153F (~135F) and turned it on. At this point I went out to take care of some errands - nothing you would be interested in. When I got back a few hours later, I was greeted by the smell of beef jerky as I opened the front door - wow!

The jerky had been drying for about four hours while I was gone and much to my surprise was completely done. In fact it could have come out a little bit sooner to be even better, but that's my fault for going away and leaving it. When I make jerky using ground beef it takes a lot, lot, longer - more than twice as long.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!

The end result is absolutely delicious. The combination of the fruit juices, coconut aminos and spices gives the steak an amazing, slightly citrus flavor. I wish you could try some, it's soooo good!