Homemade Roast Beef Lunch Meat Packets

The Earl of Sandwich was clearly on to something with his culinary invention that remains a dietary staple today.  Basically a sandwich is a filling between two pieces of bread, quite often including some type of meat.  Commercially prepared, thin and evenly sliced lunch meats are only as far away as the nearest grocery store.   Packages often go on sale or are regularly priced at very low prices to encourage consumers to buy them.  This type of lunch meat is not without fault.  Sure, you are getting it for a very low price but like most commercially processed foods, lunch meat is laden with preservatives, food additives and sodium.  One slice of roast beef lunch meat contains as much as 300 mg of sodium in comparison to 6 oz of home cooked roast beef that contains 92 mg of sodium.  A sandwich made using two slices of roast beef lunch meat contains 600 mg of sodium in just the lunch meat without adding in the sodium content of the bread, condiments or extras.  In perspective, those two pieces of roast beef lunch meat contain almost 30% of the sodium RDA set by Health Canada.  Clearly, if you are on a sodium restricted diet lunch meat is not a food that you should consume on a regular basis.  However, the problem with commercially prepared lunch meats  is more than just sodium.  Sodium nitrate, a known carcinogen, is used as a preservative in commercially prepared lunch meats.  Expectant mothers are advised not to consume lunch or deli meats due to risk of Listeria to the feotus.  Commercially processed lunch meats may also contain a number of food additives including high fructose corn syrup.  All that aside, I have to admit not liking commercially prepared lunch meats and never have.  My work-around is simply making homemade versions of lunch meats using whole cuts of meat, home cured meats and cooked meat loafs, all thinly sliced.

When I am making roast beef, I usually cook two.  It takes the same temperature and time to cook two as it does one.  Part of one roast is used for dinner with the remainder for planned left-overs.  The other roast is typically prepared for homemade lunch meat.  Commercially prepared lunch meat is typically thin sliced.  Using a chef's knife to slice cold roast beef will give nice, thin slices with a bit of practice.  A meat slicer has been on my list of kitchen wants but I haven't bought one yet, so a chef's knife it is.  I slice across the grain, trimming any fat if necessary. 

In general, I find leaner roasts work best for lunch meat slices.  I generally do not add a lot of seasoning other than garlic pepper, onion and Worchestershire sauce although sometimes I add tomato stock.  Once the roast is fully cooked, I let it cool then refrigerate until cold.  The cold meat is easier to slice thinly.

I package the thinly sliced meat in the amount we will comfortable use within three or four days into vacuum bags then vacuum seal for freezing.  Vacuum sealing prevents freezer burn.  The packets thaw nicely in the refrigerator.  We use one sometimes two packets of homemade lunch meat a week.

This method of freezing and storing lends itself nicely to thinly sliced turkey breast, meat loaf, home cured summer sausage, home made pastrami, and wild game.  I have found the price per pound of the home made lunch meats to be generally less expensive than commercially prepared lunch meat.  The quality of the product is significantly higher though with lower sodium content, no preservatives or additives, and it tastes better.  Prep time for freezing the meat is minimal at only slicing and vacuuming time.  Overall, homemade lunch meats are a healthier, cost effective alternative to commercially prepared lunch meat!

Planned Left Overs for Homemade Convenience

Yesterday I wrote about the pot roast with fire roasted tomato basil gravy I made for dinner a couple of nights ago.  This roast was cooked with planned left overs in mind to be made into a couple of homemade convenience foods.  Since I cook mainly from scratch, homemade convenience foods really help sometimes. 

Roast beef lunch meat is currently priced at $5 for two 300 g joined packages, 600 g/1.32 lb total.  That works out to $3.78/lb.  We buy our beef on the hoof which works out to $2.35/lb across all cuts of beef we get.  One of these days I am going to invest in a meat slicer but thin slicing the beef or any other meat or poultry is not a huge problem.  The Yoshiblade™ ceramic knife does a really nice job of thinly slicing meats but any sharp chef's knife will do the same thing. 

Of note, the price of $3.78/lb for the joined packages applies to ham and turkey, both of which I can get for a better price than beef.  While store bought lunch meat is convenient, it takes little time to slice your own and with homemade you aren't getting all that salt, artificial colourants or flavourings.  This left over chunk of roast beef took me less than 5 minutes to slice into thin sandwich slices. 

Anytime I cook a roast beef, turkey, ham or cook extra BLSL chicken breasts, I reserve a portion to make homemade lunch meat slices.  I vacuum seal the slices then freeze to use as needed.  Each packet is about 1 lb which is a comfortable amount of sandwich meat to use up within a few days.  One of our freezer baskets has been dedicated to store these convenient meat packets.  The beginning of each week I take one packet from the freezer and place in the meat keeper of the refrigerator.  It's thawed by Tuesday ready for making sandwiches which works out nicely as usually we have left over meat from Sunday's dinner for Monday's lunch.

I cooked the pot roast with potatoes, carrots and cabbage that took on the flavour of the fire roasted tomato basil sauce used to make the final gravy well.  We like cottage pie, aka shepherd's pie made with ground beef or pork.  Years ago I discovered that rustic cottage pie is much more flavourable and more nutritious if you add carrots and/or cabbage to the potato topping.  I pulsed the roasted, richly flavoured vegetables with left over gravy and a little milk in the food processor to make the topping for a small cottage and a vegetable side for another meal.  This really is convenience because all I have to do is thaw and use.  Quite frankly, it would take me about 15 minutes to make a potato, carrot, and cabbage topping but it wouldn't have the extra depth of roasting and it saves me 15 minutes cooking time on a busy night.

I ended up with about 4 cups of the blended roasted vegetable mixture.  Originally I was going to freeze it together but decided to divide it half so I could vacuum seal.  In order to vacuum sealing this type of dish, it has to be froze first then vacuum sealed.  You can freeze in muffin tins for individual serving sizes or in 2 c containers.  Once frozen, the dish is popped out of the container and placed into a vacuum bag then sealed.

This method is used for anything wet like soups, stews, and some vegetable side dishes.  Whole rolls, loaves of bread and muffins can be frozen then vacuum sealed as well.  This prevents crushing.  The nice thing is you need a lot less freezer containers which translates into less container clutter.

Vacuum sealing the frozen dish is highly recommended because it eliminates freezer burn and reduces the freezer space needed.   I use a Sharpie to mark the contents and date just above the seal, right on the bag.  It works well and is low cost.

I like opening bags of foods frozen this way then popping them into a bowl while still frozen to avoid any mess of getting them out of the bag.  I ended up with two 2 c bags of the roasted vegetable mix per bag.  That is enough for one topping of a rustic cottage pie and a side or two cottage pies or two sides.  Not bad for a convenience food, if you ask me :)

Monte Cristo Sandwich

Sandwiches have to be one of the most popular meal and snack choices! There are several of our favourite sandwich recipes in the archives. For that reason alone there seems to be no end to the various ways to prepare two pieces of bread with meat in between aka the sandwich. While there are many great ways to make sandwiches that aren't warmed up, there are also endless ways make cooked sandwiches including but not limited to toasting, grilling and using a sandwich press.

Monte Cristo

Last Saturday we went out with friends of ours with stopping for dinner as part of the outing. One of our friends ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich (pictured). This sandwich contains turkey, ham and cheese then dipped in an egg mixture similar to French toast mixture then pan fried. A Monte Cristo is an easy to make sandwich at home.

You will need per sandwich:
note: Use store bought lunch meat or very thin sliced home cooked meat.

2 slices of bread
2 slices Black Forest ham
2 slices turkey breast
2 slices Swiss or Gruyere cheese
butter
egg mixture

egg mixture
3 eggs
⅓ c milk
dash of sea salt

For each sandwich butter one side of the bread. Cover one bread slice with 2 slices of cheese, 2 slices each of ham and turkey slices. Top with the other slice butter side facing the filling. Beat the eggs with milk and salt. Place 2 toothpicks diagonally to across width of sandwich to hold together. Dip the sandwich into the egg mixture. Fry in a pre-heated fry pan or griddle with a little butter until golden brown. Remove from fry pan or griddle. Cut in half. Remove toothpicks prior to serving.