[MUSIC] Okay, so we're going to make a stir-fry. I have half of an onion here. And if you feed them to your children first. If you put them on the table on their plates, and you say to them, the other stuff is coming really soon, but this is all that's ready right now. If they're hungry, they will fight over the last piece of broccoli. I think maybe one of the mistakes that people make with vegetables, is they think that they're not allowed to add any sauces or anything. So they just end up making them plain steamed vegetables. And I think the key with children, is that firstly you have to get them great vegetables. You have to get the ones that are fresh, that are locally grown or seasonal, and then you have to dress them up a bit. You can put a bit of melted butter on your steamed vegetables or some sauces on your stir fry, because then they have kind of a positive experience with their vegetables. [MUSIC] And now I'm switching boards. Apparently, it's hard to get the smell of onion and garlic out of a wooden board, so you don't want to chop your onion and garlic on a wooden board. [MUSIC] And now what I'm going to do, is cut up any way, any shape, any size. I'm going to cut up my vegetables, and then I'm going to stir-fry them with some plum sauce and some soy sauce. In medical school they taught us, never to feed a child anything round like this, because it's exactly the size of their windpipe. And you, if they inhale it it can block off their air passage, so if you have things that are round, just cut them in half. And the only other thing that I have to tell you about stir-fries, is that there's a famous chef in the Bay area called Alice Waters. And she does so much great work with organic foods, and getting the school food programs to serve really healthy lunch alternatives to children. They have school gardens and things. And she's done so much work, that I think she once made a comment, where she said, we've come so far since the days of the stir-fry. So this is obviously, obviously, I haven't come as far as Alice Waters, but my children still like the stir-fry, so I figure while I move forward, I might as well keep the stir fry in my repertoire, until they say to me, Mom we've come so far since the stir-fry. Then I'll stop making it. Okay, so I've got my carrots on one side. I'm going to cut up some cauliflower. You're just trying to separate the little florets, in ways that will be attractive and yet bite-sized. Here, I've got my broccoli now, and I'm going to cut this up. You can basically just use as many colors as you can find at a local market, and stir-fry them all together. Mushrooms go nicely in a stir fry. I am going to put some of this in. [MUSIC] I'm just going to pull the inside part with the seeds out. [MUSIC] This is going to add my red. You can use orange ones and yellow ones as well. [MUSIC] And the final thing is a little baby zucchini, which cooks quite quickly, and adds a nice different kind of crunch to the stir-fry. Okay, so that was it. That's all you need to make a stir-fry, and look how many vitamins your children are going to get from this, as their first course, as their appetizer. Sorry Alice Waters, you're my hero, but I'm not ready to give up on my stir-fry yet, and neither are the kids. It's going to be quite a high heat, like medium-high for a stir-fry, and again, I'm just going to start with a little bit of olive oil. You can put a splash of sesame oil in if you have it, but you don't have to have ten different kinds of oil in your cupboard either. It'll taste just as good with olive oil, and there's something else I didn't mention. This is ginger. If you want to add a bit of really Asian flavor to your stir-fry, this smells so fresh and nice, and it's easy to use. You just peel the skin off and cut a little chunk, and you can push it through the same kind of press that you would use for garlic. And if you don't have one of these, you can use a little pot and just pound it up, or cut it with a knife into small pieces. Okay, be careful that you don't get splattered, because hot oil is not fun to have on your skin. And then I'm just going to move these around, until they start to get kind of glassy looking. The nice thing about stir-fry, is its got the sweet and the sour and the salty, and it's got so much color. It, like, hits all of the children's senses at once. I think with a dish like this, if you show the children that you enjoy eating it, that you look forward to, not only to making it but to eating it with them, I think they'll be much more motivated and much more likely to try it. And now, we're going to give our carrots a little head start, because they take just a little tiny bit longer. So we're going to move this over here, and I'm just going to shove my carrots in, and give those just a minute or two. And if I want, if your pan seems like it's a little bit dry, you can already add a little bit of your soy sauce. I'm using a gluten-free soy sauce. And you can just a regular one, and just add a little bit for a bit of moisture to cook the carrots. You can hear it sizzling away. [SOUND] Okay, now that we've given the carrots a little bit of a head start, we're going to add all of our other colors. [MUSIC] I'm getting serious now, two spoons. [SOUND] Now we get to add the flavor. This is plum sauce. It's a little bit sweet and a little bit sour, and it's just delicious. Hm, what a good smell. And a little bit more soy sauce. So the one last thing I have to say about stir-fries, you don't want to overcook them. You want the vegetables to be a little bit crunchy, the kids prefer it that way. And with a smell like this, they'll taste this at least, especially if you give it to them before you put the pasta and the chicken, and the other parts of the meal out. [MUSIC]
