Mom's Beef and Broccoli (partially from the freezer)

I hope that makes you hungry.  I've been playing around with trying to learn good food photography techniques, and while this is far from perfect, I feel like it's a decent start.

Anyway, this dish is easy, makes great leftovers, tastes very much like a restaurant version of beef and broccoli and is a prime candidate for freezer cooking.  In fact, in this particular version pictured above, I prepared the beef and marinade at least a month ago and stuck it in the freezer.    I simply thawed it this morning, chopped the veggies, made the rice and cooked that sucker.  To save even more time, you could definitely chop the veggies ahead and freeze them in a separate bag from the meat.  Then you'd have your own home-made stir fry pack.  If you do that you might want to attach the two bags somehow (put them both in a larger bag?).

Although the recipe that I got from my mom is labeled oyster beef (due to the oyster sauce), here we shall call this:

Mom's Beef and Broccoli

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. steak, sliced very thin (I usually use strip steak, this time I used sirloin)

1 lb. bite size veggies (I probably do about half broccoli and the rest carrots, onions and bell peppers--you could certainly use any veggies that appeal to you)

peanut oil, sesame oil, red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp. lite soy sauce

2 Tbsp. water

1 Tbsp. corn starch

3 Tbsp. oyster sauce (I recommend the spicy version)

Directions:

Using a ziploc baggie, marinate the beef in a sauce made from the last four ingredients for at least 15 minutes.  As mentioned above, the bag could just be labeled and tossed in the freezer at this point.  I always end up making too much, so I usually need 1.5-2 times the sauce.

Heat (about 1.5-2 Tbsp.) peanut oil (with dash of sesame oil and pepper flakes as desired) in a wok or large saute pan.  Dump the veggies in and stir fry to desired crispness (mom's version says about 3 min.--since I make to much this always takes me somewhat longer).  Remove veggies from pan and set aside.  

Heat another 1.5-2 Tbsp. oil mixture in the wok/pan.  Add the beef (thawed, if previously frozen) and cook until pink.  Add the veggies back to pot and complete cooking the beef.  Sauce can be thinned with additional water.

Serve over rice.