Leftover Roast Beef -- What To Do?

Leftover roast beef is a lovely problem to have, but if your family doesn't want the roast beef as is the next day, or you don't have enough to go around, a well planned leftover recipe can help.

Beef stew is probably the easiest way to use up your leftover meat and veggies.

The first thing is to chop up at least 4 cups of raw mixed vegetables, tonight I used carrots, celery, garlic, and onions. I had more onion and celery than anything else, probably only 1/2 C or so of carrots all told, and only 2 cloves of garlic. You use them in there proportion you see fit! Melt some butter or heat some oil in the bottom of a stock pot, sprinkle the veggies with salt and pepper. Cook your veggies over medium heat till they are fragrant and your onions are getting translucent. You will need some beef broth of some kind. If I don't have frozen homemade broth on hand I use bullion, "better than bullion" soup base, packaged beef broth or some combination of the two until I have about 2 C of liquid. Tonight I used 1 can of golden mushroom flavored soup which has a beef broth base and 1 cup of beef bullion, I also added in one of these small bottles of Sutter Home red wines which are fantastic for cooking, plus a tiny can of V8 vegetable juice which I would rather die than drink, but works marvelously well in soup bases. If you were adding potatoes to this soup, now would be a good time to add them. You could also throw in a bay leaf or two. Let everything come to a good boil and mix a 1/4 C or so of the broth to 1 TB of corn starch, make a slurry and then pour it back into the soup. Turn the heat down and let everything come together for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile chop your leftover roast into bite sized pieces, add it to the soup and allow everything to simmer until the meat is heated through and the vegetables are tender. If your leftover roast has leftover veggies with it (more carrots, celery, onions etc) go ahead and add them in when you add in the meat. Also add any drippings or juices from the container where you stored the roast.

And there you have it, roast re-used, and dinner on the table in about 30 minutes.

Other ideas for leftover roast beef.

*Thinly slice the beef, make a gravy from reserved drippings, make a hot open-faced roast beef sandwich.

*Grind together leftover roast with raw potatoes and onion and fry in a cast iron skillet to make beef hash.

*Chop the beef small, mix with frozen mixed veggies, make gravy from drippings and top with uncooked biscuits. Bake until biscuits are done for a sort of "pot pie".

*Thinly slice beef against the grain. Cook thinly sliced bell peppers and onions on oil and worcestershire, sprinkle with chili powder and cumin, when soft and fragrant, add slices of leftover roast beef and fry together with pepper mixture. Serve as fajitas in tortillas or on top of salad greens.