Low fat beef stroganoff

About 4 years ago, I lost 20kg, and for the first 12 months I was so terrified that I would pile all the weight back on that I made the same stir fry every night, had a home-made ham, tomato and cheese toastie for lunch every day, and always took the same home-made low fat muffin in for morning tea. At that stage, I only owned one cookbook, and I rarely opened it. Dining wise, you can gather that this was a pretty boring year, and if I had lived with anyone at the time, they would never have tolerated it.

Thankfully, I have moved on from those dark days, and I have realised that you can still enjoy "normal" food in moderation without your weight blowing out. However, I still like to keep my calories down in my main meals so that I can indulge my sweet tooth a little more freely.

Tonight was one of those nights when rather than cooking, I felt like sitting down with a family block of Cadbury Dairy Milk and going for it. Luckily, common sense prevailed, and I cooked.

In line with my low calorie, low fat objective for main meals, I decided to make beef stroganoff from Michelle Trute's Cooking with Conscience. While this is nothing like the traditional favourite known by this name, resplendent with red wine and cream, it is still a tasty dish, primarily because of the tang from the mustard and the kick from the onion and garlic. I served it with boiled rice and cooked frozen veges (the lazy cook's standby!), and it made a satisfying meal.

Don't be fooled by the rather unlovely picture - it has a heart of gold! If you would like to try it, you can do so as follows:

1 chopped onion

2 crushed cloves of garlic

500g beef, cut into strips (or in my case, cubes!)

1 tablespoon plain flour

200g sliced mushrooms

1 teaspoon mustard

2/3 cup low fat natural yoghurt

Brown the onion and the garlic in a frypan sprayed with cooking oil. Toss the beef in the flour, then brown in the pan with the onion. Stir in the mushrooms, mustard and yoghurt and season with salt and pepper. After simmering for 1 minute, remove from the heat and serve on a bed of rice with vegetables of your choice. Serves 4-5. (I only use 100g of meat per serving because my dietician from weight loss days told me to use that as a guide for me personally, but I realise that this is not enough for everyone.)