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Monday, July 14, 2014

Brown Rice and London Broil Veggie Stir-Fry - OMG Delicious!



If you follow me on Instagram, (which you should! @phitnessphoodie) you may have seen my stir-fry dinner last week.  I cannot express to you how delicious this was.  It’s not that I didn’t think it would be good, but I did not think it was going to be as delicious as it was.  It was so simple too; once I got down how to cook the brown rice.  


Brown rice is so much better for you than white, but my fiancée was having an issue with it because he mentioned it cooks different, and he’s never liked it.  So I decided to search and find the best way to cook it.  And for all you other brown rice doubters out there, it turned out really well!

Then I just used whatever veggies we happened to have on hand; an orange pepper (for some color), broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and leftover corn that I cut off the cob.  And of course garlic.  I also like to keep some ginger on hand, so I grated a little of that in, about a teaspoon or so, and it just gave it an extra little burst.


You could also use whatever meat you’d like for this; we had leftover London Broil so I cubed that up to put in it.  (Side note: don’t cook you’re protein (meat) in the stir-fry, cook it first then add it.)

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a pretty good cook.  Since I like to eat healthy, I have really flourished with finding ways to make healthy foods tasty, and I think I didn’t have enough faith in myself with this dish.  I half expected it to be just a bland stir-fry that my fiancée would end up adding gallons of soy sauce just to make it edible.  Not. At. All.  And I think my 2 little secrets helped; the ginger and perfect cook on the brown rice. 


I even brought the leftovers for lunch the next day and planned on only eating half…I literally could not stop eating it, it was so good!  The good news there at least, was that the serving of leftovers I brought was still only about 400 calories.  I honestly can’t wait to make this dish again, maybe with another protein; chicken or pork.  If you like tofu, I’m sure there is enough flavor in this that you could use that, too. (I’m personally a meat girl and proud of it!)  


Ok, Ok, I’m sure you’re all dying to know the recipe by now, and if you’re not, you should be!  It will be a new staple in your meal rotation.


This recipe yielded probably around 4 servings (depending on how much you and your family can eat).



Ingredients

About 1lb of London broil – usually what I do when I buy London broil is first cut it in half since it’s usually sold as a large piece.  Then for 2 of us, we get 2 meals out of that.  So we ate 1 half one night, and used the other half for this recipe.  I think most packages are around 2-3 pounds, so I would just cut it in half, whatever the weight might be.

1 cup of brown rice (makes 2 cups cooked)

1 pepper, diced – your color choice

Garlic cloves, chopped – I used 6, use less if you don’t want it as strong

1 cob of corn, kernels removed (check out my blog post  http://phitnessphoodie.blogspot.com/2013/02/making-your-own-frozen-veggies.html  on the best way to cut the kernels off)

1 onion, diced

5 mushrooms – I used the big whole mushrooms and cut them into pieces, you could use the already chopped

1 head of broccoli, chopped

About a teaspoon of fresh, grated ginger

Salt/pepper and granulated garlic to taste

Olive oil

Light Sodium Soy sauce



Season the London broil with salt, pepper, granulated garlic and a little drizzle of olive oil on each side.


Cook your rice first, because that can sit a little.  Here is the recipe I found to perfectly cook brown rice.  This is one I did follow to a ‘T’.  http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Perfect-Brown-Rice


Once your rice is resting, get a large sauté pan really hot (you can put a little drizzle of olive in the pan too if you’d like.)  Cook the meat to about rare to medium rare – about 3 minutes per side.  (This is why you want the pan really hot to get a nice sear on each side.)  Remove from pan and rest. You don't want to cook it all the way, because it will continue to cook while resting, AND you're going to put it back in the pan once everything is complete, so by the end it will be a nice medium.


Turn heat down to medium high, add a little drizzle of olive oil and the chopped garlic.  Let that sauté for about a minute or two until it becomes really fragrant, and then grate your ginger in.  Let that sauté for another minute, then add the soy sauce with about 2-3 turns of the pan to de-glaze.  Add the veggies, salt and pepper to taste, and let cook down, about 10-15 minutes until everything is tender.


While the veggies are cooking, slice or cut the meat into cubes.  (Let it rest for at least 10 minutes first though!)  Once the veggies are tender, add your rice and meat and stir together, adding more salt/pepper/soy sauce to taste.


All that’s left now is to eat and enjoy!!  Let me know what you think!!