While i like cooking roasts and chicken and such for both meals and leftovers, the truth is, i like having precooked sandwich meats in the fridge. Wow the price on these has just gone crazy! I don’t mean the good stuff at the deli counter either, i mean all of it, the price point keeps going up, the amount we are getting keeps going down and in many cases, they have changed their recipes and they are hoping we don’t notice.

So as i was looking at food equipment for black friday sales, i spotted something called the Ham Maker, and went huh.. in some ways its like making sausage but without the casing and in the very size we think of as sandwich meat sliced rounds.

At $40 Canadian it was worth trying and boy, am i glad we did, so far i have made a number of different sausage recipes, i have made it course with just regular burger and spices, i have made it finer by doing the only stir your meat one way to create the longer texture fibers and i have put it and spices/dried and powdered greens/herbs and even veggies into the food Processor and let it grind till very smooth indeed.

The bottom line, the leftover juice makes the best soup/stew starter or you could use for gravy, or flavor other dishes with it. The cooled and sliced rounds can be made quite thin for sandwich or pizza or it can be made thicker for fast reheating with a bit of crisping.

Mine is standard size and it holds 2 pounds of meat prepared and then once cool can be sliced and stored in the fridge for ready to go use. I already had the water in the big pot left over from waterbath canning so i did it so you could see the pot but normally i do it in shuttle chef pot as it just fits it perfectly and it takes much less energy to run the cook time.

So far the spring to me is the only real weakness, you need to let it cool enough that you can get it to let go and or risk the first slice by putting a dull edge down enough to break the cooking seal, the rest of the unit is study as they come. So far the spring is solid and holding well, but i would like to see where its at in a year or five!

Mixing and matching meats, flavors, herbs, greens and even dried powdered veggies, its proving itself to be quite easy and useful! I will admit that i wish i could adjust the compression on the meat itself as i think some could use more and some could use less.

Overall rating, Solid 4.5 out of 5