#1 - Veggie Stir-Fry, Singapore Noodles & Pasta alla Norma

Welcome to the first 'Cooking with Ruby' newsletter! On the menu this week we're cooking a stir-fry, some Singapore noodles & Pasta alla Norma.

May 04, 2023

Welcome to ‘Cooking with Ruby’, my new weekly newsletter where I’ll be sharing vego meals for you to cook.

Sometimes the hardest part of cooking is trying to figure out what to make so I’m hoping this will be some helpful meal inspo for you!

I’ve had a fair few friends tell me recently that they’re struggling to figure out what to cook, so I decided “you know what…I love cooking and I really like writing newsletters (weird I know)” so I thought this would be a fun new hobby.

I’ll be sending out three recipes every Friday (in time for your weekend food shop), plus some extra links of easy meals I’ve found for you to make.

Make sure you hit subscribe and share with any of your friends who you think would like to get meal inspo in their inbox every week!

These meals will all be vegetarian, and will mostly all be relatively cheap, easy and quick to make. And also I won’t tell you my life story before giving you the recipe ;P

I’ll include labels on each recipe to indicate if it’s under $10, a quick cook, a one-pot wonder or an easy staple.

Most of the recipes I’ll be sharing are ones I’ve found online somewhere (so I’ll make sure to link them all), and a few are just staples I’ve been making for years that don’t have a recipe, so for those ones I’ll do my best to write them out and give you approximate measurements and cooking instructions. When I’m making meals that I’m well-versed in, I tend to just chuck things in at random so my apologies in advance if my recipes are sometimes a little chaotic.

I’ve also set up an Instagram where I’ll be posting and sharing links to all my recipes so go give me a follow! Also if you make any of these meals please send me photos/reviews by either replying to this email or DMing me on Instagram.

Follow me on Instagram

Vegetarian Stir-Fry

An easy staple

Our first meal off the dock is a veggie stir-fry! This is just such an easy, quick and healthy meal that is bloody tasty (in my opinion).

A veggie stir-fry is a great meal to cook if you just have a random assortment of veggies sitting in your fridge that you don’t know what to do with, and you can serve it with rice or noodles or just have it on its own.

There are definitely lots of sauce options for stir-fry but this one I just made with the stuff I already had in the pantry.

I don’t follow a proper recipe for stir-fry (I just kinda chuck things in) but I’ve attempted to write down below how I made this recipe. BUT if you would prefer a less chaotic one check out this one.

Vegetarian Stir-Fry Recipe

Notes:

This stir fry that I made was about 6 serving sizes, but just adjust the amount of veggies if you want to make more/less.
With the sauce ingredients, you can use any combination of these but at a minimum use soy sauce and garlic. The amount of each depends on how much stir fry you’re making, but I normally just eyeball it (sorry I know that’s not very helpful! I’ll give approximate amounts in the method.)
The method/sauce ingredients explained in the method are what I did for this particular stir fry. Definitely Google different stir fry sauce recipes if you want to do something different/would prefer an exact sauce recipe.

Ingredients:

Whatever veggies you want/have in the fridge (I used broccoli, beans, zucchini, capsicum, mushrooms)
Tofu (optional)
Sauce ingredients
- Soy sauce
- Garlic
- Ginger (I use ginger from a jar but you can also grate up fresh ginger)
- Dark soy sauce
- Sesame oil
- Vegetarian oyster sauce
- Lemongrass (I had about a tablespoon of store-bought paste left from another recipe that had lemongrass, ginger, coriander and chilli in it, so I just chucked that in)
- Chilli/chilli oil
- Corn starch
Extra bits/garnishes
- Spring onion
- Sesame seeds
- Oil (vegetable, peanut or canola)

Method:

If you’re adding tofu, cut it into bite-sized cubes and toss in a bowl with a teaspoon of cornstarch and a splash of soy sauce. Put a splash of oil (preferably vegetable, peanut or canola oil) in a fry pan or wok, and fry up the tofu until golden brown, and then remove from the pan and set aside.
Cut up all your veggies into your preferred shape/size. Add another splash of oil to the pan and put the veggies that will take a little longer cook in the wok first (beans, mushrooms, broccoli, carrot etc). Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the rest of the veggies.
Let all the veggies cook for a couple more minutes and then add the tofu back into the pan.
Add garlic and ginger (I used about 4 cloves of garlic and about 2 teaspoons of ginger) and let it cook for 30 seconds.
In a bowl mix 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of cornstarch (this will help thicken up the sauce), 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil, and 1 tablespoon of vegetarian oyster sauce. Add this to the pan and mix everything together.
Cook for another minute or two until veggies are cooked enough. Give it a taste and add any extra sauces if you want.
Serve with rice or noodles (or just on it’s own). Garnish with spring onions, sesame seeds and chilli oil (if you want).
Enjoy!

Singapore Noodles

Under $10 | A quick cook

Singapore noodles are a great meal to make for dinner, or meal prep for your week-day lunches.

I vaguely followed this recipe but replaced the meat with tofu and tripled the recipe so I’d have enough for dinner plus leftovers for lunch this week.

Recipe for Singapore Noodles

Pasta alla Norma

Under $10 | An easy staple

Pasta alla Norma is a delicious tomato and eggplant pasta. I love making this cause it’s so easy and makes for great leftovers for lunch the next day.

Here’s the recipe I followed and I also made a Reel of me cooking it which you can check out below or go watch it on my Instagram.

cookingwithrubyyy