Cabbage and green bean stir fry

School has started again and that means that I am busy. So while I'm still cooking, I'm cooking fast and simple rather than complicated and fancy. My favourite food of the moment is Cabbage, Green Beans and Noodles because it takes less than ten minutes to prepare, it's filling and has energy and green things in it, and (with bargain bin noodles) cost 20p per meal. Obviously you can jazz it up with better ingredients, and probably make it more nutritious; here is the basic method.

a handful of green beans
balsamic vinegar
soy sauce
1/4 cabbage, sliced up very thin
noodles of your choice, to serve one
clove of garlic
knob of fresh ginger

- start frying the beans, because they will take longest
- prepare your noodles
- add the cabbage to the pan
- add the garlic and ginger, both shredded up finely or crushed
- splash balsamic vinegar over everything
- cook for a minute. this mellows the vinegar, and makes it less tangy.
- splash soy sauce over everything
- cook for another minute
- add noodles, mix it all up, and fry it off for a little longer
- eat!

Pasta and cabbage!

Someone cooked for me tonight, which was amazing! I was a little sceptical about the combination at first but it turned out to be delicious. Here is the recipe:

Pasta with tomato-tofu sauce and balsamic cabbage
You will need:
Enough pasta for everyone (penne is my favourite)

For the cabbage:
2 cloves garlic
1/2 a savoy cabbage
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce

For the tomato sauce:
pinch of basil
pinch of paprika
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp blended up tofu

- cook and drain the pasta
- the sauce is really easy, just mix everything together in a pan and simmer for 10 minutes. The sauce is simple, but creamy
- cut the cabbage into really thin slices.
- fry in a big frying pan, with the garlic, for two minutes
- add the balsamic vinegar and soy sauce at the same time, and fry over a medium heat for another 3-4 minutes.

This looked really fancy, and tasted great - really flavourful and fresh.