Wednesday Dinner

Have you ever made a meal that tasted so good you wonder why you hadn't been making it regularly all along?

Tonight was that dinner. I made grilled Rubens, oven-roasted potatoes, and jello with fruit. A few weeks ago, when Harris Teeter had their pre-packaged deli meats and cheese on sale Buy 2, Get 3 free, I had a flash of inspiration and picked up 2 packages of pastrami. (Technically, I think that turns my Rubens into Rachels since I didn't use corned beef, but I can't tell the difference in taste.) I also bought Swiss cheese and rye bread, and already had sauerkraut on hand. Man, those were some tasty sandwiches - every bit as good as I've had in restaurants.

I buttered the outsides of the rye bread as I would for grilled cheese sandwiches, spread some spicy brown mustard on one slice, then layered like this: 1.5 slices swiss cheese (spread out to cover entire slice of bread), 2 slices pastrami, about 2 T. sauerkraut, 1.5 slices swiss, and other slice of buttered bread. I grilled them on my mother's old foldover grill (that she got for a wedding gift in 1949!) and it makes them thin and crispy and wonderful.

The oven-roasted potatoes are an old standby for us. I just use the recipe on the side of the Lipton Onion Soup mix. About 2 lbs diced potatoes (with skin), about 1/4 cup oil, and 1 packet dry onion soup mix. Mix together well and roast at 425 for 35 minutes or until done. These are delicious and smell absolutely mouth-watering while they're roasting. (A secret I've found to these - they're not done until they "release" from the pan when you try to stir them with a spatula. If they stick, just keep roasting and checking. If you pull them out too early, the potatoes may be tender but you'll spend all night scrubbing and soaking the pan.)

Lastly, I made raspberry jello with canned peach slices because I wanted something light and fresh-tasting on the side and that's what I had on hand.

Totals:

$1.80 - pastrami
$1.50 - 3/4 package swiss
.80 - 1/3 loaf rye bread
.50 - canned peaches (HT 2/$1 sale)
free - jello (after triple coupons)
.50 - 1 packet onion soup mix (after double coupons)
.50 - potatoes (5 lb bag/.97 at HT)

$5.60 for dinner for 3 (with leftover potatoes & jello/fruit)