Pastrami, Italian Beef, Turkey and More - Some Q, Some not-so-Q

[colonel00]

So last Saturday I made a run to Restraunt Depot and the local grocery store and came back with a good stash of meat and cheese to make up some deli meat and sliced cheese.

The grocery store had rump roast on sale so I loaded up and cooked some up following Dr BBQ's italian beef recipe. If you haven't tried this, I highly recommend it. Now, following the recipe, this was cooked in the oven but could easily be done on the grill or smoker at higher temps.

Once done, the meat was wrapped and chilled in the fridge overnight to be sliced and finished the next day.

I also picked up a whole corned brisket from RD so I threw some on the UDS for pastrami and crocked some corned beef.

^^^I made it really peppery as I was planning to slice it thin and I knew I would lose some of the rub.

While the beef was cooking I sliced up the cheese.

I also sliced up all the turkey. I admit, this was the cheap route and I did not cook it but for what I got, it was money and time well spent.

Poor slicer got a workout and this was only halfway through.

Finished and sliced pastrami.

And here is the whole haul at the end of the day.

In all I think I spent $80 or a little more but I am set with meat and cheese to last me for quite some time. If you have a slicer or know someone that does, this is by far the best way to save money on lunch meat. RD carries the exact same stuff you get at the grocery store deli and you can save a couple dollars a pound by doing the work yourself. In all I have 5lbs of provolone, 5lbs of muenster, 3lbs of colby jack, 8lbs of kettle fried turkey breast, probably 3-4lbs each of pastrami and corned beef and probably 4-5lbs of Italian beef. Off the top of my head I don't know what current deli prices would be but I wouldn't be surprised if I paid close to half of what a deli would charge. Now I just hope my vacuum sealer is up to the challenge.

As a bonus, I manged to keep all of my finger tips too :thumb:

 

[FastEddieM]

You've been busy! Great lookin' cooks!

 

[bluetang]

You Dawg:clap2:

 

[fingerlickin']

Heck of a money saver there! Makes me want a sammie. Question: Can you freeze the cheese? I always wondered that. If so, I have a slicer and I will be doing this.

 

[colonel00]

Heck of a money saver there! Makes me want a sammie. Question: Can you freeze the cheese? I always wondered that. If so, I have a slicer and I will be doing this.

Well, I fear it will become crumbly with freezing so my hope is to avoid that for as long as possible. Vacuum sealed I hope I only have to freeze a little. My real goal is to pawn off what I won't eat onto friends and they can repay me for what they want. I have talked about doing this with friends and co-workers for a long time. I wanted to get a group of people together, order what they want for their families and then we can buy in mass and split it up. Everyone is always interested but the plan always falls through. This time I just decided to do it and we will see if there is more interest now that the meat and cheese is in hand ready to go.

 

[Twelvegaugepump]

This looks great. Has anyone had any luck freezing the sliced meat, like turkey, for future deli meat?

 

[Golden Toad BBQ]

Looks great! I'm getting hungry! :thumb:

Toad

 

[Gore]

Wow! Looks like you have enough food there for the whole night, maybe even leftovers for Sunday breakfast as long as nobody else shows up.

 

[Garyclaw]

What is this "oven" you speak of?

JK.

You did good Brad!

 

[landarc]

Very nice, you have been a busy boy.

 

[Wampus]

You read my mind!

I got my hands on a slicer last weekend and did some corned beef, ham and roast beef myself. The wife always buys the real deli meat and last weekend I did some cooking, slicing and vacuum sealing. Ended up with 4 lbs of ham, 2 lbs of corned beef & 2 lbs of roast beef (rump roast).

Does the cheese freeze OK too? Not sure why I never thought of that. I just cooked one of those grocery store corned beefs, but was telling the wife about those EXACT corned beef (bee's best) that they have still at RD. This is gonna be a regular thing for me now too. With 4 kids and me taking out lunch every day, we're gonna save some SERIOUS $!

 

[colonel00]

This looks great. Has anyone had any luck freezing the sliced meat, like turkey, for future deli meat?

Well, I just pulled out the first pack of turkey from the freezer so I will see how it turns out. I have sliced other meats in the past and it worked out just fine. However, before I would freeze the meat in sandwich sized portions. This worked really well as I could take it out of the freezer and pop it into the microwave and have a hot sandwich in a minute. Unfortunately it also ate up the sealer bags so I didn't do that this time. Once the turkey is thawed, I will let you know how it looks.

Wow! Looks like you have enough food there for the whole night, maybe even leftovers for Sunday breakfast as long as nobody else shows up.

Yeah, then again, that was a month ago too :shocked:

What is this "oven" you speak of?

JK.

You did good Brad!

I know, I know. In my defense, I was following the recipe from Dr. BBQ and since most of the cook called for it to be covered, it is hard to justify firing up a cooker. Next time I will though just to compare.

You read my mind!

I got my hands on a slicer last weekend and did some corned beef, ham and roast beef myself. The wife always buys the real deli meat and last weekend I did some cooking, slicing and vacuum sealing. Ended up with 4 lbs of ham, 2 lbs of corned beef & 2 lbs of roast beef (rump roast).

Does the cheese freeze OK too? Not sure why I never thought of that. I just cooked one of those grocery store corned beefs, but was telling the wife about those EXACT corned beef (bee's best) that they have still at RD. This is gonna be a regular thing for me now too. With 4 kids and me taking out lunch every day, we're gonna save some SERIOUS $!

The jury is still out on the cheese. Most of it has been in the fridge since I did this a month and a half ago. With it sealed up nicely, it will last for quite a while. Now, one lesson I did learn is if you do slice and seal cheese like I did, the cheese tends to "glue" back together and it is difficult to separate the slices once you open a vacuum pack. Next time I might think about using wax paper between the slices but that may prove to be more effort than the effort it takes to separate the slices as I have it packaged now.

I have frozen some cheeses in the past and they come out alright but it can depend on the types of cheese and other factors. With this batch I only ended up putting a small quantity of the muenster and provolone in the freezer as I feared I would not go through it in time. Granted it is only me and the GF here so we don't go through a lot of food. If you have a family that eats a lot at home then you could probably survive with just sealing it and leaving it in the fridge. When I do finally pull some of the frozen cheese out I will try to remember to report back as to how it worked.

 

[colonel00]

I just wanted to follow up on this as I just pulled some more muenster and pastrami out of the freezer. (no kids makes food last longer mod) Anyway, to those that asked about the cheese, it has held up just fine. The muenster has been in the freezer for 7 months and I cannot tell a difference in taste or texture. I have yet to notice any sort of freezer burn or visual evidence that it was ever frozen. I will definitely be doing this again here this fall to restock the freezer.

As I noted above, the only issue I did have was that by vacusucking it the slices kinda of got smashed back together and it is very difficult to pull off a slice at a time. To alleviate this I am going to try two different methods on the next batch. First I will simply just alternate the position of the slices to make it easier to identify and pull off a single slice. However, this takes up more space and thus more vacusuck bags. The other option is to use wax paper. I will give this a shot but it almost seems more laborious and possibly more expensive. Due to the sheer amount of cheese slices and the lack of little helpers (see mod above) it would be quite the undertaking to cut and place all of that paper. Regardless, I really do want to vacuum seal the cheese as that has really kept it in great condition.