Left-Overs Easy Beef Stew

If you're like most people who grill out on holidays, especially if friends or family come over, you have a couple of left-over steaks and baked potatoes lying around. Here's a quick and easy recipe to use them. It beats re-heating steaks and eating. That makes them tough. Baked potatoes, grilled steak, or any other cooked vegetables add additional flavor to stew.


                                                   Left-Overs Easy Beef Stew

1 steak, cooked, cut into 1" cubes
2 baked potatoes, cut into 1" cubes
2 tbl. spoons All-Purpose flour
1 small onion, sliced (Or chopped grilled onion)
1 cup sliced carrots
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 cup frozen corn (Or leftover cooked corn)
2 tbl. spoons vegetable oil
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 cups beef broth
2-3 dashes hot sauce
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
s/p to taste


Heat 6-quart pot on medium-high heat. Add oil. Add onion, carrots, celery. Cook 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in flour to make roux. Reduce heat to medium. Add corn, mushroom soup, stock. Cook 25 minutes. Add steak, potatoes, thyme. Lower heat to simmer 30 minutes.  Add hot sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

If using fresh meat instead of leftovers, add meat before onions and cook 5 minutes. Add onions, carrots, celery, and flour and cook 4-5 minutes before adding stock . If using uncooked potatoes, add after stew has been cooking 25 minutes and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.

Carne Asada with pico de gallo

Summer is for grilling. I love Mexican food. This Carne Asada (Grilled Steak) recipe is easy and feeds several for an inexpensive cook out. Goes great with tea or a good Mexican beer, like Dos Equis or Tecate.


                                                                 Carne Asada

2# skirt or flank steak
1 large onion, sliced
1 avocado, peeled, sliced

Marinade
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 Serrano or jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 limes, juiced
1/2 orange, juiced
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup olive oil

Remove silver skin from steak and into slice very thin strips. In a bowl, mash dry ingredients into a paste and mix with liquid ingredients. Place steak into plastic bag with marinade mix, cover thoroughly, and allow to refrigerate 2 hours.

Get grill hot. Oil grill. Place onion on grill and cook 4-5 minutes. Turn over, Add meat to grill and cook quickly - 3-4 minutes per side. Serve Carne Asada, grilled onions, and avocado slices on warm flour tortillas with pico de Gallo and slices of avocado.

Pico de Gallo

4 Roma tomatoes, small diced
1 red onion, small diced
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 Serrano or jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbl. spoons lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste

For sweeter pico de Gallo, substitute pineapple for tomato,