John Wants Sandwiches

 

A number of years ago, when our family size decreased to just three people, I gave up buying lunch meats for sandwiches.    Katie didn't care for ham.  I found that I didn't care for any sandwich meat except for the deli meats, and they were super pricey.  I think John was insisting on salads only for his lunches about this time.  So, we stopped buying packaged lunch meats entirely.  We might splurge now and then, usually on vacation or around a birthday on deli sliced meat, but I felt we could go without and so we did.  

In my quest these last few months to waste no food at all, we've eaten leftovers most days for lunch.  I was fine with that, but John confessed the other day that while he understands why I'm doing this, he sometimes wishes I'd just put a sandwich on the table.   

Truth, I could never eat a sandwich and be perfectly happy.  John honestly likes them.  I want to please my husband.  I want to stick hard to my budget and no food waste plan.  What's a homemaker to do?

Well, I'll just do it all!

Here's the deal.  I can make sandwiches without buying any luncheon meats and they can be just as delicious as those sandwiches made with luncheon meats.

Even at today's prices, I can buy a roast for less than I would pay per pound for deli meat.  That's still true for beef roast, corned beef, chicken, and turkey.  Pork loin, Boston butt, and ham are also options and affordable ones.  Even if I buy only the chicken and turkey breasts to cook, it's cheaper than lunch meat per pound. Salt and pepper are usually sufficient to make any of this taste good, but I have the ability to go fancy and season meat as Buffalo, rosemary and sundried tomato, lemon pepper, Greek, Teriyaki, etc. That's a bonus.  I can have basic pantry items and basic meats on hand and still have a variety of tastes to escape boredom.

I prefer, rather than purchase simply with the purpose of sandwiches in mind, to bake a larger cut for a meal, then slice a portion of it thin and set aside for sandwiches.  I've noticed that any of these meats will also keep in the freezer but it's best to pour a little of the cooking liquid over them in order to preserve the texture.  Just freezing thinly sliced meat can be very drying, even if it's particularly well packaged.  I generally opt for using it fresh within a couple of days of cooking it.

Peanut Butter and Jelly is a classic sandwich filler.  John loves PB&J.  Some might find it boring but like the meats I use, I can serve it in a variety of ways.  Have you tried peanut butter and raisins?  Peanut butter with finely minced celery and shredded carrots?  Peanut butter and crispy Iceberg Lettuce? Peanut Butter with thinly sliced apple?  Peanut butter and mashed banana?  The secret to that is to add a teensy bit of mayonnaise.  I've even tried peanut butter and bacon. I haven't made that with turkey bacon yet.   I can attest that all of these are good sandwich fillings and I'm not a big peanut butter fan!

Pimento and Cheese are a classic sandwich filling in the South.  Personally, I love it and I like to keep it simple: grated cheddar cheese, a little mayo and a tiny jar of drained, diced pimentos.  Roasted red peppers chopped fine taste similar but isn't quite the same thing as a proper pimento, however if you're not accustomed to the difference in taste, you'll be none the wiser if you can get one for less money than the other.  Some people season pimento cheese differently.  Again, it's all to your taste.   A tiny bit of garlic powder doesn't do any harm. You could add chopped jalapenos.  Or canned green chilies, drained.  You can add black pepper or a tiny bit of grated onion.    A few choose to go fancier and use a mix of cheeses, but I stick to the tried and true.  Do NOT purchased shredded cheese to make this, however.  It completely changes the texture and taste.  Shred your own cheese for this sandwich filling.

One of the girls I used to work with made a cooked pimento cheese for sandwiches.  I've eaten some purchased refrigerated pimento cheese and I'm sure it was cooked.  Not my personal favorite but it would certainly stretch the pimento cheese filling I would think.  And yes, you can truly be a Southerner and like your pimento cheese cooked.  Just not my preference.

You can always use leftovers in your sandwiches as well.  Meatloaf makes an excellent sandwich.  John is quite fond of an open-faced meatloaf sandwich I make with leftover meatloaf.  I put bread on a sheet pan, put on thin slices of meatloaf, thin slices of onion, then top with some ketchup, and finally a thin slice of cheddar cheese.  Run all this into a hot oven until the cheese is bubbly and the bread slightly toasted on the bottom.  

Of course, that doesn't work as well for packing in a lunch box, but it does make a mighty good sandwich.  I don't mind a cold meatloaf sandwich myself, but John was never convinced it was good.  

Egg salad is a good option too, especially if you have chickens that are in laying mode or if you can buy them on sale ($1.27/18ct at Kroger as I write this, two weeks in the past).  John prefers a chunkier egg salad.  I like it a little smoother.  The compromise in our household is that half the eggs get shredded on the grater and the other half are chopped.  You can gain a variety of flavors simply by how you choose to season your salad.  The most common is sweet relish, mayonnaise and a bit of mustard, along with salt and pepper but you can leave out the sweet relish and use dill relish.  You can leave out pickles and use dill weed or curry powder to season the eggs.    We like to serve our egg salad with lettuce on white or rye breads.  

Tuna is an option if you have bought it on sale.  My current price point for tuna is around 70c a can.  I prefer to buy the canned rather than the packets simply because it tends to be cheaper that way.  Packets can be reasonable and the tuna in them is as good or even better than the canned tuna. My trick for extending a single can of tuna is to drain well, then mix with a shredded boiled egg, along with half an apple.  You can mince the apple fine or grate it.  The apple isn't something you really taste, as the tuna has a strong enough flavor that it overwhelms the apple.  What you notice is the tuna has a bit less 'bite'.  Even water packed tuna can be a bit acidic but the apple offsets that.  You can use red or green apple, your preference. I add in pickle relish and mayonnaise as well.  Finely minced celery and a chopped boiled egg is nice as well.  I find that often enough a 5.5ounce can of tuna made into salad this way will make four hearty sandwiches.  One other option is to chop celery fine (about three tablespoons) and mix that with a can of drained tuna, a spoonful or two of mayonnaise and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Salmon can be subbed in for tuna in most salads. John doesn't care for salmon, but it was something I ate routinely in the past.  I liked it best with pickle relish and mayonnaise.

Cream cheese is a nice protein to use in a sandwich as well. I know that currently the price is high, but it is an option.  Cream cheese is really good with thinly sliced radishes and cucumber, or you can chop the vegetables finely and mix in. I would think chives would be really nice with this!  You only need 1/4 cup of each vegetable and the cheese.    

You can mix 1/4 cup cream cheese with 1/4 cup of your choice of jam or jelly.  Or add 3/4 cup of chopped cooked chicken with salt and pepper to taste with 1/4 cup of cream cheese.

If cream cheese is hard to find or too dear in price, try cottage cheese instead.  You can add whatever you like from chopped cooked egg to pickle relish, chopped cucumber and radish, chopped nuts and shredded carrots.  You're getting a good portion of protein in the cottage cheese.  If it seems too wet for a sandwich, you can always line a colander or strainer with a coffee filter and strain out some of the liquid.  Watercress or finely minced green onions would also be good mixed with cottage cheese.

I mentioned purchasing and slicing meats, but I have to remind all of us that there's sliced meat for sandwiches and there's chopped meat mixed into salads.  Pickle relish, mayonnaise and chopped egg are excellent in roast beef, chicken, or ham salad.  I've made roast beef salad for John, but he wasn't thrilled over it.  He's the least little bit particular about trying new things.  

When we've visited a Southern chain that specializes in chicken salad (Chicken Salad Chick) I was introduced to a grape and chicken salad that was so good!  I just love it.   If you visit the site, you can read the description of their various chicken salads.  It's a great place to gather fresh ideas.  In one of my oldest cookbooks, I've recently come across a chicken, pineapple and walnut salad recipe.  It sounds really good to me.

Sliced chicken with tomato, lettuce, and bacon is always good, too.   

And don't let's forget BLTs.  Or just plain old tomato or cucumber sandwiches in the height of the summer.  Yum!!

Growing up we often ate what Granny called "Garden Salad sandwiches."  Whatever Granny had fresh in the garden (usually tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions) was layered on bread with mayo and lettuce made a very good sandwich.

I'd be remiss to not mention that often here in the South you'll find Pineapple sandwiches at most of the church dinners and always at funerals.  Drained Sliced pineapple is used.  The can is used to cut the white bread (nicely removing crusts as you made that round bread) and then the bread slices spread with mayonnaise and the pineapple slice put between the pieces of bread.  Honestly, I love them!  And sliced banana on bread with mayonnaise is pretty darned good, too.

At one church dinner, I was served a tasty fruit filled sandwich on whole what bread.  The filling consisted of chopped banana, crushed pineapple, and nuts.  It was really good!

Block cheeses are usually the best priced ones, but not always.  Watch sales and note package weights on sliced cheeses.  You just may find an unexpected bargain. Invest in a cheese slicer which will allow you to cut cheeses more thinly.  Look for great sales or markdowns in the deli on specialty cheeses.  As with everything, know what your price point is.  I think most of us think cheese and meat are just a given, but you can just have a cheese sandwich.  If I do add cheese to a meat sandwich, I cut back on the meat.  I've watched a deli counter make sandwiches and they start by weighing the bread, then weighing the meat and the cheese on the bread.  Those two ingredients are the priciest part of the sandwich.  Most 6-inch deli sandwiches have a total of 4 ounces of protein at best.

Try a variety of breads.  I look for manager markdowns on bakery breads.  Five grain, whole wheat sourdough, Italian, Rye and Pumpernickel are all favorites along with homemade white bread.  Pitas are nice for a change and John loves a 'wrapped' sandwich made with a flour tortilla.

The same thing is true with sandwiches as with any other meals.  You can make the sandwich fancy and overfill it with cheese and meat and watch the budget drain, or you can keep it fairly simple and inexpensive.  Seasonal vegetables and lettuce are nice 'fillers' for most sandwiches and give an added heartiness.  Don't discount fruits.  Sliced thin apples are excellent on a ham or smoked turkey sandwich.  Pears are wonderful on a chicken sandwich. 

While I'm all about using less expensive items, there are places I just won't compromise.  We eat deli bologna only.  We buy a very good all Beef bologna and have it sliced for sandwiches.  I watch for a sale and buy 1/2 pound.  We divide that meat and freeze half when we get home.  I don't buy bologna anywhere else but the deli. My reasoning is that I may be frugal but I'm not going to eat sub-par food just because it's the cheapest.  I made bologna and cheese sandwiches for our lunch the other day and that was a real treat for us. 

While I've mentioned mayonnaise often, you can doctor mayonnaise to suit you.  Make an aioli, use add some chipotle, herbs, lemon zest, or barbecue sauce, etc.  All make nice sandwich spreads.  You can use Italian, Ranch or Thousand Island dressings as a sandwich spread, too.   Try a variety of mustards.  I love the spiciness of a brown mustard, but I also like a really lovely grainy mustard.  Honey mustard can be very nice on a chicken sandwich.  Horseradish ates a little bite to roast beef sandwiches. 

I think I've said about all I can about sandwiches.  I'm going to make sure John gets a sandwich at least a couple of times a week...It won't bust the budget and those leftovers can be used for a relaxed and easy supper on another night.