The cat's away (Mrs. Beitel, a vegetarian, is off visiting old friends)
so the mice (mouse, me, still an occasional meat-eater) will play.

The local market had bottom round roasts on sale and lo and behold,
there was a 4-pounder marked with a $3 off sticker since the sell-by
date was the next day, so I made an impulse purchase.

That night: rubbed it with my favorite mix for roast beasts:
A roughly equal mix of salt, pepper, minced fresh garlic, and chopped
fresh rosemary. Did the old 15-minutes-in-a-hot-oven followed by
~40-minutes-in-a-very-slow oven trick until it reached 125 degrees F
internally. Let it rest ~15 minutes. It ended up pretty rare, but that
was part of the plan - you can always make rare meat less rare but you
can't make overcooked meat rarer, right?

Sliced thinly with my sharpest longest knife, served with lightly fried
potato slices and a steamed artichoke (another item Mrs. Beitel isn't
fond of, but I am) and some melted butter. To die for.

<http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa407/Silvar_Beitel/RFC/IMG_0383_1_zpsf2d7ff60.jpg>

OK, on to leftovers!

Two lunches (so far) of "Smithfield" sandwiches. These are nothing
but thinly sliced rare roast beef with good dill pickle slices, yellow
mustard and lettuce on chewy homemade bread. They've been a favorite
of mine ever since I was a kid and got them from the deli counter at
Smithfield's Market in downtown Evanston, Illinois a looooooong time
ago. (Smithfield's is no longer there.)

Took a rare chunk from the middle and whizzed it in the food processor
with some onion and taco seasoning until coarsely chopped. Cut some
large jalepenos in half lengthwise, removed all the seeds and pith,
filled 'em with the beef mix, and baked 'em in a moderately hot oven
for 30 minutes until the peppers softened and the mix was cooked
through, then topped 'em with a slice of cheddar-jack and cooked 'em
another few minutes to melt the cheese. Served them with some tostados
topped with refried beans, some more of the roast cut into matchstick-
sized pieces, onions, diced tomatoes, pickled jalepeno slices, and
chopped cilantro. Some salsa over all.

Cut the leftover stuffed jalepenos and tostados into little pieces and
mixed 'em into scramble eggs for Sunday's brunch.

Took another hunk, cut it into small cubes, and made beef-vegetable-
barley soup (beef stock from the freezer leftover from previous beef
encounters, onions, carrots, celery, beef, barley, and some random
other veggies that needed using up). More or less the recipe on the
back of the Goya barley bag (the addition of significant oregano is
genious). Served with some homemade "pizza dough" rolls (my version
of the ones you get at Bertucci's, which are always popular in the
Beitel household). This was good for another couple of lunches too.

Took another hunk and ran it, a potato, an onion and a couple more
deseeded/deveined jalepenos through my old fashioned hand grinder,
added lots of black pepper, fried it up and served the hash with some
mushroom gravy and a green salad on the side for another dinner.
(Should have diced everything up with a knife instead because the hash
was too mushy, but it tasted just fine.)

Took the last of it, sliced it up very thinly, marinated it in lime
juice, chiles, fish sauce, etc. and made myself a Thai steak salad.
(Good steak works better for this, but the marinade helped soften the
rare roast beef to the point where it worked just fine.)

And then ... finally ... it was all gone!

But I'm good for another year or two :-)

--
Silvar Beitel