I wanted to make something light for dinner. The scale keeps telling me I am gaining weight. I’m sure Girl Scout cookies have something to do with that. One can not have just one or two or three of those Thin Mints! So I am thinking “bunches of vegetables” but something for meat as well. Taking a peek into the freezer finds a bit of leftover steak and a stir-fry frozen vegetable package. That’s the start.

The package of frozen veg is not going to be enough if I want this meal to be mostly vegetables. So I add a package of mushrooms and an onion. And then I decide I will cook some brown rice after all, thinking that I have a package of “instant” brown rice that will cook in 10 minutes. Nope! So I put regular brown rice on and figure that will give me time to prep the vegetables and cook the stir fry.

I cook the beef strips briefly and then remove them from the pan to cook the vegetables. I add the Teriyaki sauce to the meat and when vegetables are mostly tender I put it all back together with more Teriyaki. The best guess I have for this throw together meal is:

• about a pound or a little less of beef steak, cut into strips
• 1 package frozen stir-fry vegetable mix, this one is a sugar snap pea combination
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 8 ounces of mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce, more or less to taste
• 1 cup uncooked brown rice, cook per package directions

This is a super simple dinner to prepare. Technically one could just cook the meat and throw it in with the frozen package, douse it with Teriyaki or Soy Sauce and the meal would be ready in 15 minutes. I chose to do a little bit more work that than. Note: brown rice takes twice as long to cook as white rice. My timing was a bit off but it’s all good!

Seems to me I’ve been serving most of our dinners in bowls lately. Just works out that way I guess…and it saves on serving dishes to set around the table…and then to wash. There seems to always be dishes to wash!