Our new favorite recipe

comes from Disney Family Fun, a magazine I'm not even sure why I get.  (I think when Cookie went away the powers that be started sending me DFF instead.)  At any rate, this embarrasses me a little, since I get virtually every food magazine known and, well, you'd think we'd end up loving something from one of those, but no.*  This is fast enough for weeknight especially if you do some of the vegetable prep the night before.  (Dinner is hard when you have a toddler and you work all day.  You have only a narrow window to get dinner on the table.  If I know I'm going to stir fry, or cook anything that has more than just a few ingredients I almost always do the vegetable prep the night before, after Liam goes to bed.  This practice has improved my evenings immensely.  For reals)

So, I made this pretty much as they described except I added some tofu because we happened to have some around and a little soy sauce (maybe a tablespoon or so with the other liquid ingredients) because I like salt.  And I added extra peppers and extra cashews.  Liam loves to choose colored peppers at the grocery store.**  Yellow and orange are his favorite colors, so we almost always have those on hand.  Here are the details:

Mix: 1 tsp cornstarch, 3T chicken stock, 3Toyster sauce, 2 tsp dry sherry and 3/4 tsp sugar.   (This is where I added the soy sauce.  I also used closer to a tablespoon or sherry and a tsp of sugar.)   Set aside.

Mince up 2 tsp fresh ginger, 2 cloves fresh garlic, and the white parts of 3 scallions.  (I did this the night before and put them in the fridge in a little dish with peanut oil to cover, which was maybe a little bit more than the 4 tsp they call for but not an excessive amount.  Worked fine.)

Assemble: 4 tsp peanut oil (you don't need this if you put the garlic, etc., in peanut oil the night before), 5-6 cups broccoli florets, 2/3 cup thinly sliced red (or orange or yellow) bell pepper (and we used more), the sliced greens from the 3 scallions, and 1/3 cup roasted unsalted cashews (we used more).

To cook: (1) Toast the cashews in a dry skillet (or wok) over low heat until they are warm and your kitchen smells like cashews.  Set aside.  (2) Heat a large skillet (or wok) add the oil, scallion whites, ginger and garlic and cook until just fragrant, about 1 minute.  Don't burn them.  Add the broccoli and stir fry for about 2 minutes.  Add about 1/4 cup or so of water, cover, reduce heat and steam until the broccoli is crisp tender.  (If you're adding tofu, this is when to add it.)  Uncover, raise the heat and add the peppers.  Toss and stir fry for a minute or so.  Add the sauce you made before, toss, and cook until it is bubbling and looks done.  Add the scallion greens and cashews.  That's it. 

*Note 1: my copy of Cooks Illustrated came today and they have a series of stir fried broccoli recipes including one with oyster sauce that is almost exactly like the DFF one (minus the peppers and cashews).  So, that's something, I guess. MS Every-Day Food also has a broccoli in oyster sauce recipe, so maybe DFF started a trend.

**Note 2: I have to brag on Liam a little bit.  Our baby eats the following vegetables, and by "eat" I mean he will reliably fork them into his mouth without prompting often to the exclusion of other things on his plate: broccoli, zuccini squash, winter squash, mushrooms, carrots, corn sauted w/ onions (or any corn), green peas, and red, yellow, or orange bell petters (but not green), burssel sprouts.  He also eats regular and sweet potatoes, but I'm never sure if those really count as vegetables.   If you feed them to him, he'll tolerate green beans, but he won't eat them on his own.