Tasty Tuesdays: Beef Stir Fry

***Tasty Tuesdays is for sharing a meal/dessert/snack recipe that you made this week.  It doesn't have to be gourmet!  It just has to taste good! If you want to link up, let me know and I will link you to my Tuesday posts.  Use this^ button to link back to my page!  

This is one of my go-to dinners.  Except one problem: I couldn't find my recipe!  I haven't made this since before we moved so I am guessing that it got lost in the move.  Well, I still made it because I had the stuff and I generally remembered the recipe.  Plus, I have always appreciated cooks who make up recipes and don't use exact measurements.  I think cooking is much more like an art form that way.

So, I gathered the ingredients that I had:

I typically go with the regular generic frozen "stir fry medley" veggies, but that includes pepper and onion, which I already had (as you can see).  So I got this one instead:

And I am really glad I did because the broccoli, snap peas, and carrots were very tasty, fresh, and crunchy!  Josh and I are not huge fans of water chestnuts, so we were glad when there were only a few of them.  I also typically get some real thin slices of some kind of beef and then cut them into strips, but a few weeks ago, Josh and I had ribeyes for dinner and we didn't finish them.  So we cut them up and froze them for later.  I whipped those out and had free beef!

So, first I made the marinade.  I chopped half of a vidalia onion, added 1/2c soy sauce, 1/2c water, 3 tbsp sugar, and about 2 cloves of garlic, pressed.  Then I added the beef and let that sit while I started on everything else.

Ewww.  It looks gross.

I started the rice.  When it comes to having rice in my house, I don't go cheap.  I full-heartedly believe that couponing and buying generic brands are important for a family on a budget.  However, everyone has a few things that they simply need to have a brand name for.  For instance, Josh needs brand name cereal and Jif peanut butter.  I have even tried to sneak in generic cereal by purchasing the ones that most visibly resemble the name brand, pouring the cereal into a Tupperware thing (which we do anyway), and getting rid of the box.  He takes one bite and he knows.  He will not eat it. And my things are: Mahatma Basmati rice, Saran Wrap brand plastic wrap, and Sabra hummus.

Anyway, I have tried making rice in my steamer and it never really seemed to work.  I like it dry and sticky, like Chinese food rice, for this dish, so I went with the old stove top method.  I made a cup of rice.  It's quite a lot for two people, but I usually overdo this dish because we both like to take leftovers to school for lunch.

Rice simmering.

I have found that it works best when you simmer it on the lowest possible setting.  I do not touch it at all until the time is up (I definitely use a timer for this one--just whatever the recommendation is on the package), and then I fluff it with a fork just before serving it.

While the rice is simmering, I added the frozen veggies to a pan with some olive oil to warm those up a bit while I cut the other vegetables.

I sliced red pepper, orange pepper, the other half of my onion, and some leftover asparagus from another dish.  I actually just realized that I have been sharing Tasty Tuesdays for 3 weeks now and in every recipe I use peppers.  Yeah, I like 'em.  I also used to just use half of an onion in this dish, but I specifically remember Josh requesting more onion last time, so I did that.

Then I added the fresh veggies to the warmed frozen ones, added a bit more olive oil, some salt and pepper, and sauteed them up!

oooohhh... how pretty and colorful!

While they were all getting cooked, I put the marinade and beef into a pot and brought it to a boil, then combined it all together.  We love that the vegetables are still crunchy...

And the best part: leftovers!!!

***On a side note, if I had not had the leftover cooked steak and would have started with raw beef, I would have done it a little different.  I would have marinaded the raw beef, then added the beef to a pan and browned it, then added the sauce back in and boiled it for quite some time before adding the vegetables.  I usually boil it for a while it the sauce/marinade is soaking raw meat so that I kill all of the bacteria.  I am pretty paranoid about this, so I have been known to have it at a rolling boil for at least 8-10 minutes.  Obviously, that's not necessary.  But it doesn't hurt anything, right?