Well this week I decided to continue on with the "good stewards" theme and show you how I saved a bunch of money with a roast beef. I don't know about in your area but deli meats have skyrocketed in price here. We eat a sandwich every day at the noon hour and with the price of deli meats so high I have been making my own for several months now. To buy roast beef from the deli for sandwiches is running $7.99 lb on sale these days. Last week when I canned the ham I had also sliced some of the ham into lunch meat, enough for almost a week. This week I bought an eye of round roast and did the same. I have pictures below.
Yesterday I cooked the roast in the oven and we first had a nice roast beef dinner last night. I paid $3.59 lb for the roast, just around half of what a pound of deli roast would be, give or take a few cents. After dinner I wrapped the roast in foil and set it in the fridge for slicing today. My home sized meat slicer is just about 30 years old. It has seen better days and I will probably replace it this year and upgrade to a commercial sized slicer. I believe it will be worth the investment as the cost of food continues to rise.
I did a little research online before writing this blog and found you can pay anywhere from around $50 for a good home slicer up to a few hundred for a good commercial slicer. There is one I spotted that looked perfect in size for about $250 that I will probably buy. That might seem like a lot of money but if taken care of it will last a long time and pay you back in tons of money saved at the grocery store deli. As I said, I have had this slicer for about 30 years, so I definitely got my money's worth.
My roast was about 2 1/2 lbs and cost $9 and change. I got one nice dinner and just a little over 2 lbs of lunch meat from it. The lunch meat alone from the deli would have cost me around $16 or a little over, so I saved about $8.50 total.
In the morning I marinated the roast in worstchesire sauce and chopped onions. This added a nice flavor and helped to make the beef more tender.
We prefer our beef pretty rare so I roasted it in a 375F oven for about an hour and 15 minutes
I let the beef sit after roasting for about 15 or 20 minutes while preparing the other food to go with it for dinner. This helps to stop the cooking process and lock in the juices. Always better to let it sit a while before cutting.
I like to use an electric knife to cut most meats. You can get the slices thin and even that way. As you can see it is pretty rare and you might prefer your's more done. Just add some time to the cooking if you do. This is less than a half pound sliced up for dinner. That is plenty for 2 people and a dog to get a taste, LOL.
Like I said in my post, after dinner I wrapped up the remainder of the meat in foil and put it in the fridge. Now I am getting ready to slice it for lunch meat. I like to use parchement paper under the slicer. It keeps things neater and makes clean up easier.
The meat is on the slicer and I will adjust the blade to the thickness I want. I prefer my lunch meat pretty thin.
Just as soon as you can put the finger guard in place and use it to hold the meat. You don't want to risk running fingers into the blade. Safety should always come first. Also just a reminder, if you get meat caught up under the blade make sure you shut the slicer off before removing it. That does happen from time to time so please do always think of safety first!!
Getting some nice slices of meat!!
Just a tick over 2 lbs of lunch meat. The bigger chunks in the background are from not slicing to the very end which is almost impossible to do without getting a finger in the way. I usually grind those up with celery and onions to make a meat spread for sandwiches but since there were not very many I will give them to my best buddy Rusty as a treat.
Now that the slicing is done I will put the lunch meat in a zip lock back in the fridge for sandwiches this week, give Rusty his treat and take apart my slicer for clean up.
All bagged and ready to go in the fridge. It is such a joy to know how to stretch the food budget!! Being frugal in this way is being a good steward in biblical terms. The money I save in the kitchen can go to other needs or to helping the needy in my community. I feel so blessed!!
Until next time,,,,,,,Blessings!!
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Blessings, Alice