My wife has mentioned previously that I enjoy cooking. Let’s face it. I have five kids now, and each of them is (or in our youngest’s case, will likely be) a picky eater at SOME point in their lives. This one will only eat this, that one will only eat that. It’s a curse. It often means that I’m constantly shuffling recipes around, or tweaking them to suit everyone’s needs. I’m constantly in motion trying hard to find something that they will ALL eat. Eventually, they hit a point where their ‘This is awesome!’ response becomes ‘Ugh. I hate this.’ And then it is back to the grind.

Enter my pepper steak dish. This beauty is perfect in a few different ways. For one, it’s easy. Two, it has multiple serving options. For the sake of this post, I chose a bed of rice. Trust me that it makes great fajitas as well!

Ingredients wise, most of the items will likely already be in your pantry. For freshness, you’ll need the following:

1 lb beef, cut into strips. At the grocery store, ‘Beef for stir fry’ does the trick, and it’s already prepped for the most part. Slice it in half.

1 medium green pepper, red pepper, yellow pepper, and orange pepper. Kids love color, and in all honesty, they taste different. Put them together and you’ll be in heaven. Cut the peppers into thin strips.

You’ll need 2 to 3 cloves of garlic. Mince them up.

1 medium onion, sliced into thin strips.

1 or 2 stalks of celery, need to be cut up

1 cup of beef broth (four if you’re going with the rice option)

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 can, 28 oz diced tomatoes, drained

2 teaspoons corn starch

1/4 cup of cold water

2 tablepoons olive oil

Now for the nitty gritty. Simple steps:

1) Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pot pan, or deep skillet if you have it. Toss in the cut up onion, and the minced garlic. Stir it consistently, and cook until the onion is tender. It usually takes about 5 minutes.

2) Add the beef and the other tablespoon of olive oil. Cook until browned

3) Add the soy sauce, the 1 cup of beef broth, 1/4 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper. Stir it well. Set a timer for 5 minutes if you’re doing your rice. If not, set a timer for 30 minutes.

Optional Step – When the timer goes off, cook your rice. It will take approximately 25 minutes for it to cook. For this step, you’ll be using 3 cups beef broth, 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1.5 cups rice. Get it to boil, then simmer for the remaining time.

4) Add the celery, peppers, and diced tomatoes. Cover the mix, and cook until the peppers/celery are tender.

5) Dissolve the 2 teaspoons of corn starch in cold water. Mix into the pot, and stir constantly. The sauce will thicken with each stroke, and it takes approximately 2 minutes.

6) Either serve it on top of the rice (preferred) or on some tortillas for fajitas. Most of all, enjoy!