Welcome/Beef and Broccoli

*sighs* I've been keeping up with a personal family blog for almost a year now and love to do it, but I feel like I need to contribute something useful. Here is my attempt to do that while sharing my love of cooking, learning, and my quest for a healthier lifestyle.

I am a 30-something stay at home mom who loves food. I get great pleasure in cooking for my family, although my kids are young and often don't appreciate the time I put into it. Many of my neighbors have made comments over the last few months about my cooking in comparison to theirs. Many times that boils down too, "Whatever you are making will be better than our meal, cause mine is coming out of a box." Well, I want to use this blog to share some of my favorite, easy, often quick recipes. I will also share my adventures as I try new recipes for my family.

Currently my favorite cookbook is "Low fat, low calorie, low cholesterol:Light Cooking." The reason being that over my years of cooking I've put on a few unwanted pounds. Did I mention that I LOVE food? Now, for the first recipe (oh, sorry for the funny dishware, I'll get something better for showcasing meals soon):

Beef'n'Broccoli

1. 1/2 cup A.1. Steak Sauce
2. 1/4 cup soy sauce
3. 2 cloves garlic, crushed
4. 1 pound top round steak, thinly sliced (I bought it pre-sliced at the deli to save time)
5. 1 (16-ounce) bag frozen broccoli stir fry (has onions, bell peppers, carrots, etc in it)
6. Hot cooked rice

In a small bowl, combine the first three ingredients. Pour this marinade over the steak in a nonmetal dish. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. (ok, I mixed it all up and it only took 5 minutes. Then I left it out of the fridge and only marinated for about 20 minutes, and I forgot to stir it and it still tasted great. While it was sitting there I started the rice cooking. You can use white or brown rice, whichever your family prefers.)

Remove steak from the marinade and save the marinade. In a lightly oiled skillet (about 1-2 tablespoons oil) on med-high heat, stir fry (cook) the steak 3 to 4 minutes or until the steak is no longer pink. Remove the steak with a slotted spoon; keep warm.

In the same skillet (without cleaning it), heat the bag of vegetables and the left over marinade. Bring it to a boil to kill any germs from the uncooked meat that was in the marinade. Once it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover it and let it simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. (Simmer simply means that it has little tiny bubbles that occasionally come to the surface, so it is still cooking, just more slowly). Oh, I almost forgot. The best thing about cooking is that you can change recipes to meet your families personal tastes. I added cut button mushrooms during this stage because I really like them. You can also use fresh vegetables if you want to take the time to cut them up. They will take a little longer to cook, but they taste a lot better as well.

Stir in the steak. Serve it over the rice. Makes 4 servings. Time--5 min. prep, 20 min marinade time, 20 min cook time (cook the meat and veggies while the rice is cooking)

209 Calories, 4 g Fat, 65mg Cholesterol, 1669mg Sodium

I didn't make anything else for this meal since it had everything in it. My family always drinks water with our meals, so what you see is what we got. I have a family of 6 and we actually had left overs that I have been eating for lunches. Portion control has been my big push the last month or two. Learning to eat only what your body needs and not what your taste buds want is really hard! Luckily this meal warms up well, so you needed feel you have to eat it all in one sitting. I hope you enjoy!