Recipe: Roast Beef Stew/Soup

Janine:

Your left-over roast beef would make a wonderful soup/stew. Cut your left over beef into bite-sized pieces and return it to the crockpot. Hopefully you kept the drippings from the originally cooking because they would make great stock. Do not worry, however, if you did not keep the stock.

Add sliced mushrooms, potato pieces, chopped carrot, chopped celery, beef stock (bouillion) garlic, onion, parsley, thyme, and pepper. You can also add a can of stewed tomatoes. This is an excellent opportunity to use left over veggies you may have in the refrig. Bay leaf is also good in soups, but be sure to pick it out before serving. Shredded cabbage would also be good. Let this cook 2 or 3 hours (or more) and yummmmm.

If some of your pickey eaters do not like particular vegetables -- like carrots, for example -- you can grate them so they cook down into your soup. They will contribute to the vitamins and flavor, but be less offensive to the pickey folks.

If you want to thicken your soup/stew before serving, use left-over mashed potatoes or instant mashed potatoes. If you want to darken the soup to make it appear richer, add a bit of instant coffee.