Reuben Dip with Pastrami

I've been craving reuben sandwiches and since I rarely eat out at restaurants, fulfilling my craving for reubens is rare.  I found some recipes online for reuben dips and thought this would be a great thing to be able to ful my cravings for this delicious food.  Unfortunately, I didn't want to buy 3-4 lbs of corned beef from the meat market and chose to use pastrami instead, which I had in the frig, which the kids make sandwiches with.

Got the main recipe from Simply Gourmet, with my own version of it.  This very hearty dip can also be used in Reuben sandwiches, which I did using a panini grill.  Absolutely yummilicious.  Here is my version.

Ingredients for Main Dip:

• 2 cups pastrami slices, diced & pan-fried
• 2 cups sauerkraut, drained well & pan-fried to be dry
• 2 Tbspn olive oil
• 2 pkgs 8-oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 bunch green onions, finely chopped
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded

Ingredients for 1000 Dressing (Topping):

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup pickle relish
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, finely diced

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F.
• Pan fry pastrami first in 1 Tbspn olive oil, making sure any pastrami clumps are separated.  Remove from pan and set aside.
• Pan fry sauerkraut with the other Tbspn olive oil.  This will take 3-4 min. on each side.  Remove from pan and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sour cream.  Mix together well.  Add pastrami, sauerkraut, green onions, and both cheeses.  Mix well, making sure there are no clumps of sauerkraut.
• Pour main dip into a tart pan, pie pan, or casserole dish.  
• In a food processor, add the ingredients for the 1000 dressing and pulse chop until it looks like the consistency of regular dressing.  If you do not want to use a food processor, make sure the yellow onion is very finely diced.
• Pour the 1000 dressing over the main dip.
• Bake in oven for 20-35 min. uncovered.  This will depend on how deep your dip is, which depends upon what you've placed your dip in.  The deeper it is, the longer it needs to bake.

• Serve hot with slices of crostini (small slices of bread) like sourdough, pumpernickel, Jewish rye.  All I could find was sourdough.

• You can use leftovers of this dip to make Reuben Paninis like I did.  They are out of this world.
• Note:  You can make non-grain bread, like a coconut or almond bread that has no starches in it to serve with this dip to make it Paleo friendly.