Cuban Sandwich

[labs4me]

I ended up working on the 4th and with the wife at the cabin, I decided I was going to make a dinner for myself and eat something other than a cold sandwich. As I was digging through the freezer the night before looking for a small package of venison chops (original plan was to make some french dip)... I came upon a small (1-1/4#) chuck roast form a small deer we butchered last year... I decided the French Dip wouldn't work with that... what to do... Thought I'd give a run at making up a 'quick' and easy version of Cuban Pork Sandwiches.

I started out seasoning the roast with salt and pepper, then put it in a crock pot on low with a small onion diced up, a couple of cloves of garlic minced and 1/2 cup of orange juice. I let it cook from noon till 5 on low. I took it out of the liquid and set it on a plate. I used a fork to get the onions out of the juice and poured most of the liquid out (I left a couple tblspns in the bottom of the crock pot). I then shredded the roast and put the shredded meat and onions back in the crock pot and lightly coated it with some BBQ sauce. Keep it on low heat until the meat is warm again.

I then buttered some sesame hoagies and sprinkled lightly with garlic powder. Put those under the broiler for a minute to lightly toast it and melt the butter, then add a slice of swiss cheese to each half. Put back under the broiler only until cheese is melted.

Take the hoagies out of the oven, put some of the shredded venison on the bottom of the hoagie, put a couple slices of deli style smoked ham on top of the venison, add a slice or two of Vlassic (refrigerator section) sandwich stacker dill pickles (nice and crispy!) on top of the ham and cover with the top half of the hoagie...

The beauty is you can make the shredded meat a day or 2 ahead of time and just assemble the sandwich when ready to eat. Then it only takes a couple minutes to prepare the sandwich. Pretty darn tasty!

You won't be disappointed! Enjoy!

Good Luck!

Ken