Leftovers for Lunch

I love leftovers! Seriously, I consider myself the MacGyver of leftovers and love thinking up ways to use leftover food. Periodically on this blog I will share some meals made with leftovers and you'll see me mention the use of leftovers as I delve more into monthly meal planning.

 Last night, my dear hubby grilled us up some beautiful 1-inch thick New York strip steaks which admittedly were large enough for us to have split one versus each of us having our own. However, having leftover steak is WONDERFUL especially on a weekend when you have the time to make a yummy lunch. So today, I made steak sandwiches with our steak, some onion, our favorite cheeses and leftover wheat sub rolls.

I started with half a Vidalia onion sliced into thin strips and the leftover steak also sliced thinly. I sauteed the onions in a little olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper. When they became soft and translucent, I added my steak.

I cooked the steak with the onions and to the pan also added about a tablespoon of Worcestershire and sprinkled some of the same steak seasoning we use when we grill the steaks (I'm a big fan of Canadian steak seasoning).

While the steak and onions browned, I turned my oven to 350 degrees and threw in my two wheat sub rolls. It's a personal preference, but I always like to stuff sub rolls when they are already warm and crusty. When they are nice and warm and crusty, I take them out, split them down the center and carefully create a "boat" for the filling. I remember a Rachel Ray episode once when she was making meatball subs that she actually removed bread from the inside. However, I found it just as effective to firmly press into the sub roll and create plenty of space for the filling.

With the steak and onions nicely browned, it's time to fill the sub rolls. I like extra cheese, so I always put down a layer of cheese in the bottom of the roll first. Today's selection was reduced-fat Havarti. Husband is a cheese on top kind of guy, so I just piled the meat and onions in, before topping his with pepper-jack cheese.

Before topping with cheese.

After in the oven.

And as he was looking over my shoulder, he said "did you mention that if we had any peppers, those would have been in there too?" Of course, you can add peppers to the onions, omit onions, add mushrooms, whatever. Just make sure you saute` your vegetable(s) of choice before adding the steak so they aren't too crunchy.

The next step, is putting the sandwiches back into the 350 oven until the cheese is melted. I always preferred this over broiling because I never have to worry about the bread over-browning.

I will also mention that this simple use of steak is interchangeable with chicken leftovers. I have made a very yummy Mexican twist using taco seasoning, onions and peppers and Mexican cheese too!