The I Hate to Cook Book (10 page)

4 servings

1 loaf French bread, cut in half lengthwise

1 jar mild-flavored processed cheese spread

sliced or chopped leftover meat (fried crumbled hamburger works fine, too)

1 6.5-ounce can mushrooms

1½ teaspoons oregano

¾ cup chopped green onion

1½ 8-ounce cans tomato sauce

¼ cup olive oil (or other salad oil)

Spread a big piece of aluminum foil, cupping the edges so the juice won’t run over, on a cookie sheet or in a shallow baking pan. Place the two halves of bread on it, cut side up. Then, working coolly and efficiently, spread the next five ingredients, in the order listed, on the bread. Be sure you spread the cheese clear to the edge, all over, because this keeps the bread from getting soggy. Then spoon the tomato sauce on top and, finally, drizzle the oil over the works. Don’t broil it—just put it in a 325˚ oven for twenty minutes.

And here are some things besides hash, stuffed peppers, and shepherd’s pie that you can make out of
LEFTOVER ROAST BEEF
.

     BEEF YORKSHIRE     

4–5 servings

(This is Yorkshire pudding for cowards. It assumes that you saved five or six tablespoons of beef drippings. If you didn’t, you might keep it in mind for next time.)

First, start the sauce, so it will be ready when the Beef Yorkshire is.

Brown 1½ tablespoons of flour in 1½ tablespoons of butter, in a saucepan over low heat. Slowly add a can of beef broth, and stir till it’s smooth and a bit thick. Let it simmer half an hour, add a dash of Worcestershire, and keep it hot in the double boiler.

Now you need

5 to 6 tablespoons beef drippings

6 medium-thick slices of leftover beef

1 package popover mix (plus the eggs and milk it calls for)

Set your oven for 400˚. Put the beef drippings in a 9 x 13-inch cake pan and melt them. Lay the beef slices on top of the drippings. Mix the popover mix as the package tells you to, and pour it evenly over the beef slices. When your oven has reached 400˚, and it certainly should have by this time, put the pan in and bake it for forty minutes. Serve with the hot sauce.

     HUSHKABOBS     

(So-called because the family isn’t supposed to know it’s just that old Sunday roast still following them around.)

You need a barbecue skewer per person.

You also need, per skewer (and you can adjust based on what everyone likes to eat)

5-inch-sized beef cubes

2 mushrooms (cut up from large mushroom caps)

1 onion (from canned small whole onions)

2 tomato pieces (cut up from greenish tomatoes)

First you make a marinade by mixing

¼ cup cheap red wine

¼ cup olive oil

1 cut garlic clove

pinch of thyme and oregano

Let the beef cubes sit in this for three or four hours, and stir them occasionally. Then string them on skewers, alternating with the vegetables, which you also brush with the marinade before cooking.

If it’s barbecue season, barbecue them. If not, the stove broiler works fine (but be sure you place a pan underneath the skewers or you’ll have a mess on the oven floor).

In either case, cook them fast, close to the heat. You cooked that meat once, you know. All it has to do now is brown.

     BEEF ENCORE     

(Known in some circles as Eiffel Trifle.)

1 tablespoon butter

1 cut garlic clove

2 onions, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon flour

½ cup white wine

1 cup beef broth

leftover roast beef, sliced thin

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon good red wine vinegar

First, melt the butter in a skillet, then sizzle the cut garlic clove in it for two minutes and remove it
immediately
. Put the onions where the garlic used to be, and sprinkle the flour over them. Stir until it is light brown, add the wine and broth, and cook very slowly for fifteen minutes. Add the meat and paprika. Don’t let the sauce boil now. Simmer just long enough to heat the meat through—about five minutes. Just before you serve it, add the wine vinegar.

And here are three things to do with
LEFTOVER ROAST LAMB
.

     GOOD LEFTOVER LAMB SANDWICHES     

(With soup, there’s supper.)

Grind up about two cups of your leftover lamb and add three tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese. Add some mayonnaise to make a good smooth spread, and add some prepared mustard and horse-radish, too, according to your taste. Then spread it on thin-sliced buttered dark bread—pumpernickel or rye—with lettuce.

     INDONESIAN CURRY