Actually, I’ve just finished my second really good Pastrami sandwich. Yesterday I made one, but didn’t have any sauerkraut. But, it was still a really good sandwich. I made some homemade Thousand Island dressing (forgot to add hot sauce to it). The pastrami that I got at Wegman’s comes packaged with about 9 slices of deli meat. I use three slices of pastrami for each sandwich, and only one slice of seeded rye bread, cut in half. I butter one side of both slices and toast it (Broil) in the oven. When it has some color, I turn the two slices over and place the Swiss cheese on the two half-slices. *Just now, I took the three slices of pastrami and placed them on the cookie sheet that I was using to toast the bread. I only heated the meat up while I was melting the Swiss cheese, and that was just right to not dry out the meat, but have it nice & warm for the sandwich. The cheese melted really quickly. I took the cookie sheet out of the oven and began to build my sandwich. I place one slice of Pastrami on one half-slice and two slices on the other half-slice. I then took a little sauerkraut, made a little ball in my fist and squeezed out the excess moisture, exactly as I do the thawed, frozen spinach when making my spinach dip. I placed a dollop of Thousand Island dressing on the meat and on the sauerkraut. The melted cheese and meat help keep the bread from getting too soggy from the moisture in the sauerkraut and dressing.

This makes a fat little sandwich, which is very tasty! I took a couple of spicy, sliced dill pickles that had been chilling in the refrigerator and put them on a small plate. **This time, I also had cooked an ear of corn in the microwave, buttered & salted it. The corn doesn’t necessarily add anything to the sandwich, but good corn on the cob it like bacon… it adds something special to the meal.

$7.75 for 9 slices of pastrami = about $.90 per slice, so $2.70 per sandwich.

$.70 for a slice of seeded rye bread, for one sandwich.

$.35 per slice of Swiss cheese = $.70 per sandwich.

Let’s go .35 for one dollop of homemade Thousand Island dressing and another .35 for a small amount of sauerkraut, so $.70 for those two items per sandwich.

Let’s count the dill pickle slices at about $.85 per sandwich. So the sandwich and pickles come to about $5.65 without having to pay additional tax and tip. I did not figure in refrigeration, cooking energy nor cleanup but it should be somewhere under $7 for this tasty sandwich.

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NOTE [05/01/24]: Publix has a White Mountain Bread, but they also have a Dark Mountain Bread. I used the dark bread to make a pastrami sandwich today. Buttered & toasted on the outside, and I used Wegman’s White American Cheese instead of Swiss, toasted on the inside. I had about four small slices of the Wegman’s Pastrami left. I made a little Thousand Island Dressing (chopped sweet onion, sugar free pickle relish, Texas Pete hot sauce, Dukes mayo & some ketchup, S&P. I mixed some sauerkraut with the Thousand Island dressing and put it on the pastrami, so that it would be in the middle of the sandwich. Even with the toasted buttery outside, this makes a clean, delicious sandwich.

I squeeze the moisture out of the sauerkraut before putting it on the sandwich, but I have also found that putting some sauerkraut on the plate and adding a little Thousand Island dressing to it makes a nice “side” dish for this sandwich. French fries would be good, or potato chips. I also added one of the Ranch Dill Pickle spears to this. The sauerkraut side would probably go well with a pan fried pork chop or maybe a fried Polska Kielbasa sausage. [end NOTE]