Ham Sandwich with Mushrooms & Fruit Salad with Yogurt Dressing



The days just keep getting tastier! This was a really simple, really quick, really delicious dinner. Well, I suppose it is only as delicious as you make it. I bought my ham and swiss from the deli, and it was some of the best of both I've ever had! If you use lesser ingredients, you will have a lesser sandwich! Not to mention, if the cool dude is working, he might give you a slice to sample for free! I'm not sure if it works if you're not a young girl though...

The recipe involved making your own awesome fresh dill/mustard/mayo spread, in which I doubled the amount of dill, because dill is my favorite spice! And before you Eastern Shore purists get up in arms, Old Bay is a *seasoning*. :p

I must admit that once again I made a fatal n00b error in the procedure, by buying pre-sliced raw mushrooms a week before making this. They were supposed to be sauteed and placed on the sandwich. They smelled awful when I brought them out of the fridge [Maybe they aren't supposed to refrigerate? Maybe I should have bought whole and sliced it myself? Dad, help.] so I didn't risk adding them to the sandwich. So really, this is a ham and cheese sandwich, sans mushrooms!

I also learned that even out-of-season fruit tastes great with a homemade yogurt dressing!

Instead of my normal small amount of nutrition geekery here, I'd like to go on a diatribe about packaged lunch meats:

Prepackaged lunch meats are made out of kittens and cute puppies and babies!

But seriously, the stuff is gross, slimy, and packed with preservatives. Preservatives such as nitrates and nitrites, which are suspected to be carcinogens! I also find that most of the time, buying from the deli is roughly the same price as buying prepackaged meats and cheeses. Not to mention it is way tastier, and not soaking in cancer juice.

My mom [among others, I'm sure] agrees, but says she doesn't want to wait in line for the deli. She shops at Wal-Mart, which is always a madhouse, so I can't say I blame her. Not that there's anything WRONG with shopping at Wal-Mart - it's the cheapest! - but frankly, I would never buy anything perishable from there.

I shop at Giant only, and they have started providing an electronic kiosk with which to place your deli order if there is a line. You place your order, and you can go shop while they fill it for you! I don't know what the other chain stores are doing, so I can't tout their assets, but I think that's pretty awesome.

Whew!

5 comments:

afterthegoldrush said...

Packaged mushrooms are one of the most perishable of all produce items. They usually turn brown days before their expiration date. Next time, buy them a couple days before the intended use and always get the ones in the back of the case(oldest date). That last tip is irrelevant if you shop at Wal-Mart, as I tend to think that they do not use the FIFO method: First In, First Out.
I have been buying Sara Lee prepackaged lunch meats that Food Lion sells in the Deli department.
I don't know about nitrates or nitrites, but the sliced meats do not contain "fillers", so I am pretty sure that no kittens, puppies or babies are in my sandwiches. I just do not trust the Serv-Safe procedures of today's grocery store employees.
When you pay minimum wage...you get minimum results!

Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jessica said...

Central Market, a Texas grocery store that tells me how to live, suggests keeping mushrooms in paper bags instead of plastic. They keep them cold, too.

Tim Chaney said...

Fruit will ripen faster in a paper bag, that I have heard before. Hey man I want my dang shroons!

Twirling Towards Freedom said...

Note from Future Meredith: Dill is an herb, not a spice. Also, Stop & Shop/Giant still seem to be the only chains doing the kiosk deli!!!