Premium Deli Meat and Cheese

I'm in Akron for the holiday weekend. A lovely place to spend the holiday, far away from the sweltering temperatures of Texas. On Friday we stocked up with the groceries we'd need for four days. We've had sandwiches, hot dogs, grilled rib eye steaks and more sandwiches. With a few snacky items in between. All meals planned for minimum time in the kitchen.

Whenever I'm in Akron, I always shop at the West Point Market. It's a fabulous specialty food store and at the top of the list of my favorite things about this town. One of the reasons we shop there is because they're the only ones in the area who sell Boar's Head brand deli meats and cheeses. We're kind of finicky about our deli meat.

Boar's Head is a bit pricier than most of the other brands you find at the supermarket, but well worth the cost if you care about taste and what goes into the products. They don't use extenders, by-products, artificial colors or artificial flavors. I personally don't mind paying a bit extra for good quality.

I picked up a free copy of their current recipe book from the delicatessen counter. It's called Classic Recipes and this edition was published in 2004. It has 31 pages of recipes. There are several previous versions, all of them a bit different. This edition doesn't have any photographs of the food except for those on the cover. While you're standing around waiting for the lady to slice the order, you can browse through the booklet and get a lot of good recipe ideas.

A look at some of the recipes in the book:

Appetizers - Italian Stuffed Mushrooms, Smoked Liverwurst & Cream Cheese Spread, Pastrami Reuben Appetizers.

Sandwiches - Roast Beef Italiano, Roast Beef and Jalapeno Havarti Melt, Black Forest Ham and Egg Sandwich, Gouda Cheese & Canadian Bacon Sandwich

Salads - Creamy Blue Cheese Salad Dressing, Greek Salad, Maple Honey Turkey Waldorf Salad, Southwestern Chicken Salad, Oriental Chicken Salad

Main Courses - Traditional Cheese Fondue, Grilled Ham with Pineapple Bourbon Sauce, Chicken Enchiladas, Elegant Smoked Turkey with Asparagus, California Style Pizza

They also have a Nutritional Brochure, another nice booklet that comes in really handy if you're trying to watch your cholesterol or calories, lower your fat intake, or count carbs or WW points. The nutritional information for all their products is included in that book, a handy reference to take home with you, or to look at when you're trying to decide what to buy.