Quick & healthy beef stirfry

I had my gestational diabetes test the other day and much to my surprise I failed (thankyou PCOS) which means I have to do the three hour test this week. Yay for me because I hate needles. Anyway, because of this I am changing my diet from relatively healthy to super healthy in an effort to beat this dam test. I am pretty much cutting out all sugar except the sugar in fruit and I'm checking ingredient labels like a crazy person before I eat anything. I'm also upping my vegie intake because you can pretty much eat as many vegies as you like. I like the idea of making my food from scratch too so I know exactly what is in it so that's where tonight's recipe comes from.

Ingredients

• Soy sauce
• Garlic (paste or 2 cloves)
• 2 cups rice
• 250-500g beef strips
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks celery
• 1/2 head broccoli
• 1/4 cauliflower 
• 1/2 zucchini
• 1 flat mushroom
• 5 snow peas
• 75ml water

Of course you can add or substitute whatever vegies you like in the recipe (normally I would add red capsicum for a bit of colour, baby corn and onion). Some people don't like putting zucchini into stirfry's because they think its too watery, but I find if you only use half a zucchini its fine. Also its been one of my biggest cravings since being pregnant so I cant go without it. I don't really like broccoli either, but Ive been forcing myself to eat it because it is so good for you and now I kind of like it (as long as its not in a dish by itself). Tip for the snow peas is to sit them in cold water (as in pic above) until you are ready to add them because it makes them really crisp again even if they are a bit limp when you buy them. Rice can be substituted with cous cous. You could also make this with chicken breast instead of beef.

Directions 

(Prep time 15mins, cooking 15mins)

• Cut all of your vegies and meat into small pieces (I buy beef strips to save time)
• Put rice onto boil (it takes about 15mins so do it while cooking the vegies to save time)
• Brown beef in fry pan then add garlic (and onion if you have it)
• Add vegies in order of hardest to softest (i.e. cauliflower to mushrooms)
• Once all vegies are in the pan add soy sauce (as much as you like) and 75ml water to create a sauce. You can also add some salt for extra flavour if you need it.
• Once broccoli goes bright green and rice is cooked you are done.
• Drizzle the pan sauce over the top of the stirfry when plating.

Garnishes

You can also add cashews or sesame seeds as a garnish at the very end if you like. I would normally add cashews, but I haven't been able to stomach them since getting pregnant (which is sad because I love them).

This recipe will serve 2 people more than likely with left overs for lunch. And it tastes amazing! And no need for a packet sauce.

Toni xx