In my Pastrami Reuben (Rachel) sandwich, the Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut are the two ingredients that make the sandwich “messy”. But, to minimize the messiness, I toast the Swiss Cheese on both insides of the bread (toasted butter on both outsides). Then I put a few slices of Pastrami on top of each of the melted Swiss, then a little sauerkraut (moisture squeezed out) on one side, and some of the Thousand Island dressing on the other side. Then you put the two sides together, viola, a delicious Pastrami Rachel.

But, you only use a little sauerkraut for each sandwich. Previously, I have put some of the left-over sauerkraut in small Tupperware containers, and put some of those in my freezer. But, I don’t normally make my Rachel’s at home but every couple of months or so, so I finally came up with a most desirable solution. I just put some extra sauerkraut on my plate (not on the sandwich) and put some Thousand Island dressing on the extra sauerkraut. This is an excellent little side for this sandwich.

WalMart in the past, has sold both Dill PIckle Spears and Spicy Dill Pickle Spears. I like the flavor of both, but the Spicy Dills were better. But, I haven’t seen the Spicy Dills for sale at the WalMart that I regularly visit, for quite some time… maybe even a year. But, I found that I could pour out the pickle juice from the regular dills and pour the spicy dill juice from a previous pickle jar. An icy cold spicy dill pickle spear goes well with this sandwich.

I’m not going to make fries at home for this sandwich (but fries are the way to go if you are at a restaurant). But wavy potato chips are just fine, with dill pickle, some extra sauerkraut and a well toasted Reuben.

NOTE: I just tried to put in a product request to WalMart (bring back the Great Value – Spicy Dill Pickle Spears), to start selling the Spicy Dills again. They apparently have been discontinued. Not shown on their web site. *But, I know this request is probably very low on their priority list, but Fresh Market has renewed my belief that things that have been discontinued could show up again on the shelves, even years later… maybe even 10 years later.

Fresh Market, a long time ago, used to sell various items, nuts (Cashews in this case) in large open bins, with a hinged plexiglass cover and a scoop inside. Customers would lift the bin lid, take the scoop and scoop out the desired amount of an item into a plastic bag… label it, and seal it, and then take it to the checkout to make their purchase. Well, Fresh Market sold “Wasabi Soy Cashews” for at least a couple of years. I liked the flavor of these cashews, and found that the flavoring powder which often remained after the cashews had been consumed, also flavored Toasted Pumpkin seeds well. So, the extra flavoring powder that was impossible to keep from the scoop was a welcome addition to the purchase.

So, at some point there was signage at my local Fresh Market letting the customer know that they were going to discontinue the Wasabi Soy Cashews. I visited several times and bought the last of the Wasabi Soy Cashews in their big bin. But, they also had a few small, plastic containers of these nuts which I also bought, the last. I did mention that I liked the flavor of these, more than once I mentioned it, but after several years, I was the only one that I reminded of this. I did try to create my own Wasabi Soy powder. I bought the greenish colored Wasabi powder, but couldn’t find a Soy Sauce flavored powder, except for the flavoring packets in the Oriental (Soy) Flavored Ramen Noodles. This didn’t quite match the flavor of the Fresh Market cashews. *These Ramen Noodles packets do work when trying to make a chip dip that requires Soy Sauce with cream cheese.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was shopping in the Fresh Market in Southern Pines. I go over there once or twice a month to eat at Maguro’s Hibachi Restaurant. The Fresh Market is nearby, but I normally don’t go there afterwards. I’m walking past their nut bins and happen to look closely at one of the cashew flavors… Wasabi Soy Cashews. WASABI SOY CASHEWS! Oh, my gosh. They were selling the Wasabi Soy flavored cashews here. I bought a small bag of them and there was a little flavoring powder in the bag.

It may have been the next day that I went into my local Fresh Market. They didn’t have this flavor of cashews in their bins, but I turned around and behind me were the small plastic containers, and sure enough one of them included the Wasabi Soy Cashews. I think they cost about $8 (maybe a half pound) and there was some of the flavoring powder visible in the bottom of the container.

I used the left over flavoring powder from the cashews and put it in a container of toasted pumpkin seeds. Yes! The powder made the pumpkin seeds just as good as they used to be (10 years ago).

**Decisions, decisions… I went back to buy another plastic container and noted that a couple of them had hardly any flavoring dust. But, there was one container that had a bunch of flavoring powder… but, this container was heavier, much heavier than the others. Apparently flavoring dust weighs more than cashews. And this container cost $11.02 while another was just $8.99. So, do I pay a couple of dollars more for the flavoring powder, or not. I chose to buy the dust, and already see that that was a very wise decision. Today I bought a container of regular roasted cashews at a different grocer. It only cost about $5.49. I put half of these regular cashews in with the Wasabi Soy Cashews and they became flavored. It looks to me that I will be able to flavor all of these regular cashews, and probably even a couple of containers of toasted pumpkin seeds.

I do not think that they will continue to sell these flavored nuts. I like this flavor, and have found a way to stretch the enjoyment to another nut, but it probably won’t become suddenly popular, and sales will once again lead to their discontinuance. Still, I never thought I would see them again on the shelf, but they are.